The 2026 China Grand Prix will surely be remembered as a nightmarish Sunday for McLaren. Neither of the team’s two cars took part in the race due to multiple issues detected even before the start. Both drivers were set to start from the third row but didn’t even line up on the grid. Lando Norris faced problems on his MCL40 well before the formation lap, leaving him stuck in the garage and initially prepared for a pit lane start. As the mechanics worked frantically on the reigning world champion’s car, Oscar Piastri also returned to the garage. The Australian was likewise expected to start from the pit lane, but when he failed to leave for the formation lap, it became clear that neither car would take the start.
Power unit issues for Norris and Piastri
After the race, Andrea Stella explained that both problems originated in the Power Unit, but appeared to be of a different nature. While the exact cause remains unknown, the Italian team principal ruled out defective McLaren components: the affected area is under Mercedes HPP control.
Lando Norris didn’t even take the installation lap, returning home from China with only the five points he earned in the Sprint. Electronic issues on his MCL40 appeared an hour before the race, and until just before 8 a.m., it wasn’t clear whether the world champion would start the race. “We detected problems on the electrical side of the Power Unit. We couldn’t communicate with this component,” explained Stella. “We tried to fix the issue, changing as many parts as possible without replacing that specific component because it would have taken too long and we wouldn’t have made it to the start.”
The ECU on Norris’s car was replaced in hopes of solving the issue, and initially, it seemed Lando would start from the pit lane. However, at the formation lap, the British driver exited the car and left the garage. “We attempted the ECU swap because there was no communication with the battery, and since the ECU change only takes a few minutes, we hypothesized that might be the problem. But it made no difference—the car simply wasn’t ready to leave the garage.”
Oscar Piastri also faces retirement
It was zero out of two for Piastri, who added this China retirement to his previous one in Australia. The 24-year-old suffered reliability issues that forced him to retire before the start. Unlike his teammate, Oscar lined up on the grid but returned to the pits before the lights went green. “The car was able to reach the grid without any problem. But once there, it wouldn’t restart,” Stella explained. “Similar to Lando, though for Oscar it was easier to diagnose: it appears to be the same component of the Power Unit, electrical side, but a different issue. It’s quite unusual to have two terminal failures almost simultaneously on the same component.”
Different issues on the two cars
Asked about the nature of the issues and whether they could be fixed in the future, Andrea Stella could not provide further details: “At the moment, we understand what the problem is, but not the root cause. A physical inspection will be necessary because the available data and superficial external checks show nothing more than a general issue in a certain area and changed parameters.”
The same area was affected on both McLaren cars, making it a strange coincidence that both failures occurred during the same weekend. When asked if the problems were related, Stella replied: “This is an area of the car not under McLaren’s direct control. We rely entirely on Mercedes HPP and trust their report. According to them, the two problems are of a different nature. It seems purely coincidental that they happened simultaneously in the same Grand Prix and were both terminal failures.”
McLaren components are therefore unlikely to be at fault. “For now, that seems to be the case, but as I said, we’ve only reached a certain point in the diagnosis. Once we analyze the parts in detail, we’ll have a full assessment and see if there was anything on McLaren’s side.”
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