Andrea Stella has stressed that the rate at which teams develop their cars will be decisive in the fight for the Formula 1 World Championship.
Andrea Stella believes the 2026 F1 development race will ultimately determine who wins the championship, with McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and the other leading teams expected to introduce further performance upgrades throughout the second half of the season. The McLaren team principal anticipates an extremely close technical battle continuing all the way to the final race in Abu Dhabi.
The Formula 1 season is now entering its crucial phase after the new technical regulations reshuffled the competitive order. According to Andrea Stella, producing an initially strong car is no longer enough: each team’s ability to understand the new rules and continuously improve its package has become a decisive factor in the title fight.
McLaren upgrades transform the MCL40 in Hungary
The importance of technical development was demonstrated clearly at the Hungarian Grand Prix, where McLaren introduced five significant changes to the MCL40. The package included a redesigned floor, a modified rear wing and improvements to brake cooling.
Those developments helped McLaren make a substantial step forward after the team had previously been surprised by the performance of its main rivals. Mercedes had already taken notice of the scale of the major McLaren upgrade introduced in Hungary, which represented an important change of direction for the reigning champions.
Lando Norris capitalised on the improved package by winning at the Hungaroring and finishing 15 seconds ahead of Max Verstappen. The result delivered McLaren’s first Grand Prix victory of the season and provided evidence that the team had successfully returned to the battle at the front.
However, despite the commanding victory, Andrea Stella is not allowing McLaren to become complacent. He explained that the work required to improve the car has only just begun.
“The performance improvement we saw in Budapest was directly due to the upgrades we brought to the track. However, to continue fighting consistently for victory at the next rounds, we must keep developing the car.”
Andrea Stella expects the F1 development race to continue until Abu Dhabi
Andrea Stella expects the upgrade battle to remain intense throughout the rest of the campaign, with every leading team still capable of extracting significant lap-time gains from the new generation of Formula 1 cars.
“I expect the best cars at the end of the championship to have added as much as half a second of performance over the final races. A huge amount of work awaits us, not only at McLaren but across every team.”
McLaren’s breakthrough in Budapest was not the product of a single isolated component. The team’s recovery was supported by a broader technical programme in which several developments were designed to work together, forming the development chain behind McLaren’s Hungary breakthrough.
Further updates will therefore be essential if Lando Norris and McLaren are to remain regular contenders for victories rather than relying on circuits that naturally suit the characteristics of the MCL40. The competitive order could continue to change as teams introduce new floors, wings, suspension components and cooling solutions during the second half of the year.
Ferrari and McLaren end Mercedes’ early domination
Mercedes appeared almost unbeatable at the beginning of the championship after winning the opening six Grands Prix. George Russell claimed the first victory of the season in Australia before Kimi Antonelli won the following five races, establishing Mercedes as the early benchmark under the new regulations.
However, the response from its rivals was not long in coming. Lewis Hamilton delivered Ferrari’s first victory of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, while Charles Leclerc won for the Italian team at Silverstone. Lando Norris then returned McLaren to the top step of the podium in Hungary.
Those results demonstrate that a strong starting platform cannot guarantee lasting success under the current regulations. Any team that fails to update its car consistently risks losing the advantage it established during the opening rounds.
Ferrari has adopted a race-by-race approach to improving the SF-26, while McLaren has favoured larger packages capable of changing several interconnected areas of the car. The contrast between those strategies has become another important aspect of the championship’s technical battle, with Ferrari and McLaren pursuing different development programmes during the 2026 season.
Wind tunnels could decide the 2026 championship
The relative immaturity of the new regulations means there is still considerable scope for improvement. Engineers are continuing to identify areas in which substantial performance can be extracted, making the development contest especially unpredictable.
The fight for the championship will consequently depend on much more than the ability of the drivers on the circuit. A decisive part of the battle will take place inside the teams’ wind tunnels, simulation departments and research and development facilities.
Every technical decision will matter as the leading teams attempt to unlock the potential Andrea Stella believes remains available. The driver and team capable of combining consistent execution with the predicted half-second development gain could ultimately emerge as Formula 1 world champions in Abu Dhabi.
Potential issue to verify
McLaren publicly identified its principal Hungary developments as a new floor, a front brake duct, rear brake-duct winglets and several smaller parts. The reference to five structural modifications including a revised rear wing should therefore be checked, as the experimental rear-wing design was also described as a separate test item rather than necessarily part of the raced package.
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