Andrea Stella has praised Leonardo Fornaroli for the “great maturity” he has shown during his first Formula 1 appearances with McLaren, with the reigning Formula 2 champion impressing the team’s engineers during FP1 outings in Barcelona and Hungary. The McLaren team principal also assessed the development of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri during a challenging first half of the 2026 season, highlighting the demands created by Formula 1’s new regulations and power units.
McLaren reached the summer break on a high after Lando Norris won the Hungarian Grand Prix with the heavily upgraded MCL40. The victory offered a major boost after a complicated opening half of the campaign for the team that won the previous two Constructors’ Championships, although Oscar Piastri’s retirement with a gearbox problem underlined the reliability difficulties that have repeatedly complicated McLaren’s season.
Andrea Stella sees progress from Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
The transition to the 2026 regulations has required significant adaptation from both McLaren drivers. The new generation of Formula 1 cars has changed not only how drivers extract performance from the chassis, but also how they manage and exploit the much greater electrical contribution of the new power units.
Andrea Stella believes Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have responded positively to that challenge.
“I am very satisfied with how our driver line-up is performing,” Andrea Stella told AutoRacer.it. “For Oscar and Lando, the impact of the new regulations has been disruptive, to say the least. The new generation of cars requires not only an adaptation of driving style, but above all greater attention to understanding how to fully exploit the potential offered by the new power units.”
That learning process has been central to McLaren’s season. The MCL40 did not immediately emerge as a worthy successor to the cars that delivered the team’s 2024 and 2025 Constructors’ Championships, with reliability issues and the complexity of extracting maximum performance from the Mercedes power unit contributing to an uneven start.
Andrea Stella has already identified those challenges as one of McLaren’s key weaknesses during the 2026 season, but the progress made before the summer break suggests the team is beginning to unlock more of the MCL40’s potential.
McLaren still sees more potential in Mercedes power unit
The power unit remains one of the areas where Andrea Stella believes further gains are possible. McLaren uses the same Mercedes engine architecture as the championship-leading works team, but maximising the complete package involves much more than simply having access to the same hardware.
“There is still room for improvement, particularly regarding the power unit,” Andrea Stella explained. “We are working very well with our partners at Mercedes HPP, including on the interaction between the driver and the power unit.”
Understanding that interaction has become especially important under the 2026 regulations, with drivers required to manage energy deployment and power delivery in ways that differ substantially from the previous generation of Formula 1 cars.
McLaren’s technical progress finally produced a major reward in Budapest. The significant aerodynamic package introduced at the Hungaroring helped Lando Norris take pole position and victory, giving the team its first Grand Prix win of 2026. The development work behind McLaren’s Hungary breakthrough has therefore created a much more encouraging platform for the second half of the year.
The scale of that package also highlighted the different development approaches being taken across the grid, with McLaren favouring larger upgrade packages while Ferrari follows a more continuous approach.
Andrea Stella praises Leonardo Fornaroli’s maturity
While Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri remain at the centre of McLaren’s immediate Formula 1 ambitions, Leonardo Fornaroli is steadily building his own reputation within the organisation.
The 21-year-old Italian joined McLaren’s Driver Development Programme after an exceptional junior career in which he won the Formula 3 championship in 2024 before following it with the Formula 2 title in 2025. Leonardo Fornaroli is now serving as a McLaren reserve and development driver as he takes his first steps in Formula 1 machinery.
Andrea Stella has been particularly impressed by the approach Leonardo Fornaroli has taken to those opportunities.
“Leo is showing great maturity in his approach to Formula 1,” Andrea Stella said. “So far, he has always been very meticulous and attentive in preparing for every test, never overdoing it, but working step by step with great diligence.”
Leonardo Fornaroli made his official Formula 1 practice debut at Barcelona-Catalunya, replacing Lando Norris in FP1 and producing an eye-catching fifth-fastest time. He then returned to the MCL40 at the Hungarian Grand Prix, this time replacing Oscar Piastri during the opening practice session.
McLaren engineers pleased with Fornaroli’s development
The performances themselves have been encouraging, but Andrea Stella appears equally interested in the way Leonardo Fornaroli prepares for each opportunity and contributes to McLaren’s wider technical programme.
“Our engineers are very satisfied with his progress in every test and with his performances in the two free practice sessions in which he participated, first in Barcelona and then in Budapest,” Andrea Stella explained.
“I believe his journey within our Driver Development Programme is progressing exactly as planned. We hope it will soon offer him further opportunities for growth.”
Those opportunities do not yet necessarily point towards an immediate full-time Formula 1 seat. McLaren already has an established pairing in Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, both of whom remain central to the team’s long-term plans and continue to occupy prominent positions in the 2026 Formula 1 driver standings.
For Leonardo Fornaroli, the immediate objective is therefore to continue building experience and convincing McLaren that he is ready whenever a larger opportunity becomes available. His two FP1 appearances have already demonstrated that he can adapt quickly to modern Formula 1 machinery, while Andrea Stella’s comments show that his work behind the scenes has been equally well received.
McLaren enters the second half of 2026 with two different development stories unfolding at the same time. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are still learning how to extract everything from the MCL40 and its Mercedes power unit, while Leonardo Fornaroli is steadily proving that his own progression towards Formula 1 is moving in the right direction.
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