McLaren arrived in Canada with its second major upgrade package of the 2026 Formula 1 season, following the first significant development introduced in Miami, which had already allowed the Woking team to make a notable step forward in performance. However, during the only free practice session at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the MCL40 did not look entirely convincing, and the team ultimately chose to remove the new front wing in favour of the specification used up to the previous race.
Despite those difficulties, both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri managed to maximise the result in Sprint qualifying, with the British driver securing third place and the Australian taking fourth. In simple terms, McLaren extracted the maximum possible outcome against a Mercedes team that, at least over one lap, looked difficult to beat—but perhaps not completely untouchable, even with the upgrades introduced on the W17.
Lando Norris feels close to Mercedes: “It wasn’t my best lap”
After the difficulties experienced earlier in the day, Lando Norris said he was satisfied with the outcome of Sprint qualifying.
“It’s actually a really good thing, a pleasant surprise. After this morning, we were a little worried about how far away we were from the target, mainly because of the lack of confidence in the car,” Norris said.
Speaking about the setup changes made after the first and only practice session, the McLaren driver added: “We made some changes, we changed a few things, and it seems we found a good improvement. I’m very happy with third place. It wasn’t my best lap, I could have achieved more.”
Still, the British driver was encouraged by the fact that the performance gap to Mercedes did not appear overwhelming: “But when I saw the gap to the guys in front, it wasn’t actually that big. It’s a positive turnaround, and I’m proud of the team for managing such a strong recovery. Some aspects are maybe a bit more questionable, and we probably need more time to review things and think about them, especially because this is a really unusual circuit.”
Lando Norris also commented on the tricky track conditions during Friday’s running: “The grip is so low that you bounce over the kerbs and things like that, so you don’t get a true representation of everything, and it’s difficult to confirm the results with what we’ve seen in the wind tunnel.”
On the specific issue of the front wing upgrade, Lando Norris suggested the new part had not been abandoned permanently: “We need a bit more time on some aspects, and we’ll probably reintroduce it next weekend, or in Barcelona. But at the same time, the rest of the car was clearly working well, and I felt confident in Q3, especially on the Soft tyres. It was the first time this weekend that I really had that feeling of confidence. A good step forward—we’ll see what we can improve tomorrow.”
The reigning world champion therefore appears confident about the work McLaren has done so far in Montreal.
Oscar Piastri on starts: “McLaren has been better than Ferrari”
These were Oscar Piastri’s thoughts after securing fourth place in Sprint qualifying.
“I mean, I felt pretty good. A bit of a chaotic day for everyone, I think, but Mercedes still looks very strong. So I think that’s probably the biggest lesson to take from today, unfortunately. But we’ll see what we can do, how we can optimise things a bit better, and we’ll try again tomorrow with maximum effort.”
The Australian also addressed the sensitive subject of race starts. Since the beginning of the season, Ferrari has often been seen as particularly strong in launch performance, but Oscar Piastri offered a different perspective: “Yes, I mean, our starts have been better than Ferrari’s all year, so we’re confident in ours. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Mercedes becomes competitive there as well, but until then, we’ll do our best to take advantage of it.”
Neil Houldey: “The front wing didn’t deliver the performance we expected”
McLaren Technical Director Neil Houldey first expressed satisfaction with the team’s Sprint qualifying result.
“We’re happy to have achieved third and fourth places in Sprint qualifying. We’ve made big progress over the last few races, the Miami upgrade had a major effect in reducing the gap to the front, and the new components we brought here seem to have helped reduce it even further.”
He then addressed the front wing issue that led McLaren to revert to its previous specification after FP1: “That said, after FP1 this morning, we returned to the old front wing configuration. During the session, we found that the front wing wasn’t delivering the performance we expected and, ultimately, we decided to use the previous setup, which gave the drivers more confidence and allowed them to perform better.”
Looking ahead to Saturday, Neil Houldey made it clear that McLaren still sees room for improvement.
“There is still potential to extract more performance from the car for the main qualifying session. Looking ahead, our objective remains to continue improving the car’s performance, focusing on future upgrades and making sure we are able to fight for first and second place, not just third and fourth. The goal is to close that gap completely.”
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