Led by Andrea Stella, two-time defending F1 Constructors’ World Champions McLaren had a tough start to 2026 at the Australian GP in Melbourne. Lando Norris finished a distant P5, while home hero Oscar Piastri crashed on a sighting lap to the grid.
Coming into the season, the Italian engineer felt McLaren would be a step behind Mercedes and Ferrari. His prediction was absolutely bang on.
In qualifying, McLaren locked out the third row. However, the Australian and British drivers were over 0.8s and 0.9s off pole position man George Russell.
On race day, the defending World Drivers’ Champion finished 51s away from his fellow Brit in the Mercedes. Norris also had to hold off Max Verstappen in the second half of the 58-lap contest.
Stella: Two main areas where McLaren must improve after the 2026 F1 Australian GP
Speaking in his print media session post-race, Andrea Stella felt the pace differential to the front was similar to qualifying.
He noted that they are lacking downforce as they cannot match Mercedes and Ferrari in the corners at present. The other area was maximising power unit performance, an area Stella talked about in-depth later in his 2026 F1 Australian GP media session.
“Well, I think, in fairness, the gap today was, if anything, similar to what we saw yesterday in qualifying.
“Like we said yesterday, there’s performance that needs to come from two main areas. One is the power unit exploitation, and one is having more grip in the corners.
“And in a way, today, I think it was exactly the same. Still, we remain a little puzzled by the difference we see in the data between the speed of our car and the speed of other cars using the same power unit. It clearly indicates that we should be doing a better job in understanding how to utilise the power unit with the complexities that came with the 2026 regulations. So definitely work to do.
“And at the same time, when we look at the GPS overlays, we see that Mercedes is faster in some of the corners.
“Therefore, like I said, we have clear objectives and priorities. We need to find a way to extract more out of the power unit.”
The development race
As McLaren proved in 2023 and 2024, the Woking-based team is capable of turning difficult starts around. Two years ago they went from a similar position to now to go on and win the Constructors’ Championship.
With these very new cars, development is set to be a massive part of the season. Getting it right could bring them back into the championship fight. That’s if they do not lose too much ground very quickly.
Stella said after the 2026 F1 Australian GP McLaren must limit the damage in the early rounds, before upgrades can come into play. Understanding the power unit better will also be key.
“And on the other side, develop the car. This will take a few races, in terms of seeing some major upgrades that can allow us to change the category for which we compete.
“Therefore, I think in these few initial races, we will have to make sure that we extract most of the car in its current configuration.
“But definitely work ahead of us. And the gap that at the moment seems to be in the range between half a second and one second.”
