McLaren is preparing further MCL40 developments after a difficult Sepang weekend raised fresh questions over whether its major Baku upgrade has made the car harder to exploit consistently. Andrea Stella insists the new components have increased the car’s potential, but the Woking team has now been Formula 1’s fourth-fastest force across two consecutive weekends and has seen its deficit to Ferrari grow to 89 points.
Further upgrades are expected around the São Paulo Grand Prix in early November, while McLaren’s immediate priority is to understand why a car that should theoretically have more performance has struggled to extract it across different track conditions.
McLaren’s Baku upgrade has not delivered the expected competitive step
Over the previous four years, McLaren’s in-season development had become remarkably dependable. When the Woking team introduced new components, they generally worked immediately, and the performance gains were often beyond the reach of its rivals.
After the particularly difficult ground-effect era, when achieving reliable correlation between simulations and the track proved extremely challenging, Andrea Stella’s team has not been quite as flawless in 2026.
The extensive MCL40 upgrade introduced in Baku was designed to complete McLaren’s progression from the third-fastest team into a car capable of being competitive on every type of circuit and troubling Mercedes during the final phase of the season.
Sepang, however, produced a very different reality.
“The reality is that this weekend our car package was fourth in terms of performance,” Andrea Stella admitted after the Malaysian weekend.
That lack of performance has had a direct effect on McLaren’s pursuit of second place in the Constructors’ Championship. After the Spanish Grand Prix, McLaren sat 52 points behind Ferrari. At that stage, gaining fewer than six points per race on the Italian team would have been enough to move ahead before the end of the season.
The setbacks in Azerbaijan and at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia have changed that calculation dramatically. The deficit has grown to 89 points, exceeding the previous largest gap between the two teams this season, meaning McLaren would now need to recover more than 12 points per weekend.
The latest situation can be followed in the Formula 1 Constructor Standings.
McLaren sees worrying low-speed trend after MCL40 upgrades
“We reviewed the data and we think the car worked as it should in terms of extracting downforce and mechanical grip,” Andrea Stella explained.
Even so, the performance comparison between the final summer races and the opening events of the autumn, separated by the introduction of McLaren’s major Baku package, is becoming difficult to ignore.
The last two weekends in particular have produced a trend that, despite the small sample size, is beginning to create concern.
McLaren’s summer upgrade had substantially reduced the car’s weakness through slow corners, but Azerbaijan and Malaysia represented a significant step backwards in that area. One of the objectives of the new components — improved efficiency — appears to have been achieved, with the MCL40 producing some of its strongest efficiency figures of the season.
For the moment, however, that benefit has come at a significant price.
The data collected across the last two rounds therefore raises an important question. Red Bull and Ferrari have previously gone through periods in which performance was lost because their cars developed a narrower operating window. Could McLaren now be experiencing something similar?
MCL40 has lost competitiveness across different corner types
Overall, the deterioration has not been confined to low-speed corners. Since the introduction of the latest components, McLaren has lost competitiveness across every category of corner, while the improvement on the straights has been comparatively smaller.
Whether that is directly attributable to the upgrade package or instead reflects the conditions and layouts encountered at Baku and Sepang remains the key question.
“In reality, we have increased the potential of the car with the upgrades. The information we have tells us that this is the case,” Andrea Stella said in Malaysia.
“It is more the competitiveness on track that suggests we seem to have lost a little ground compared with the others.”
The McLaren team principal’s assessment raises the possibility that the MCL40 now possesses greater absolute potential, but its engineers are finding it more difficult to extract that performance consistently across different conditions.
McLaren had already viewed Malaysia as an important test after Baku raised questions over the new MCL40 package. Sepang was expected to suit the car better, making the lack of progress more significant.
Could McLaren be struggling with a narrower operating window?
Several teams have experienced a narrowing of their cars’ operating windows after introducing upgrades during the season. Haas encountered the problem during the summer, while Ferrari has faced something similar over the last two months, with other teams also experiencing comparable difficulties.
McLaren could now potentially be the next team affected — and Mercedes may face a similar question.
Baku was clearly a circuit where the MCL40 was expected to struggle, but expectations were considerably higher for Sepang, where the asphalt characteristics were also anticipated to suit the papaya car.
Instead, McLaren was never operating at the level of the leading three teams in Malaysia. The MCL40 was clearly the fourth-fastest car in qualifying and lost even more ground to Ferrari and Mercedes during the race as its cornering performance deteriorated.
“We have to analyse the results of the last two races carefully and understand how to return our performance to the level we had reached around the summer break,” Andrea Stella said.
“Certainly some of our direct rivals have made a significant step forward, like Red Bull.”
Singapore Sprint becomes crucial test for McLaren
Before Formula 1 reaches Austin, which should provide another more conventional benchmark for the MCL40, McLaren will attempt to optimise its existing package during the Singapore Sprint weekend.
Marina Bay is dominated by slow-speed corners, precisely the area where McLaren has shown its most concerning recent regression.
McLaren nevertheless heads to Singapore targeting an immediate response, with the team already aiming for victory in both the Sprint and Grand Prix as it seeks to rediscover the MCL40’s earlier form.
The compressed format will make that task more difficult because engineers will have far less practice time available to identify the car’s optimal operating window. The full Singapore Grand Prix Sprint schedule underlines how quickly teams will have to move from preparation into competitive running.
Austin could provide clearer verdict on latest McLaren upgrade
If Singapore does not provide a clear answer about McLaren’s latest developments, the final judgement will be postponed until the United States Grand Prix.
Austin has been highlighted as a particularly important race within Woking, where there is an expectation that the MCL40 can perform strongly.
Over the coming month, McLaren engineers will therefore focus primarily on understanding the current package while preparing further developments.
It also cannot be ruled out that McLaren could replace power-unit components during the American leg of the championship in order to install the Mercedes ADUO specification, although the plan has not yet been defined.
Further McLaren MCL40 upgrades expected around São Paulo GP
McLaren’s development programme is not finished despite Mercedes holding control of both World Championships.
“Then we will tackle the final races. There is actually still something coming for the last Grands Prix,” Andrea Stella revealed.
“So hopefully we can make another step forward and get ourselves back into a position to fight for podiums.”
Autoracer reports that further updates for the MCL40 are planned, with their debut expected around the São Paulo Grand Prix at the beginning of November.
Development of McLaren’s 2026 project is therefore continuing without interruption, as it is for the other leading teams. The common view is that stopping the development curve would also mean losing real-world feedback about whether the technical direction being pursued is correct.
Even with the potential budget-cap savings that could come from halting development, McLaren does not consider that an ideal strategy.
The immediate challenge is now to establish whether Baku and Sepang were simply two circuits that exposed weaknesses in the MCL40, or whether the major upgrade has created a narrower and more difficult performance window. Singapore will offer the first clues, Austin should provide a clearer verdict, and another development step is already expected before the final phase of the 2026 season.
Leave a Reply