Work for 2026 season ‘unprecedented’ for McLaren

The world champions have had to put in “unprecedented” work, according to McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, in order to comply with the new formula one rules this year.

Teams are getting new cars, engines, fuel, and tires in what is widely regarded as the biggest regulation change in history.

For what I can recall, there has been almost unprecedented work behind the design, realization, and construction of the 2026 cars because it has never before been such a significant and simultaneous change of chassis, power unit, and tyres.

But the most significant design project I was a part of, or at least the sheer volume of redesigning that went through McLaren’s last 20 months, is probably the largest.

“All of this makes it very intriguing to watch how the cars will perform and how the order of competition will be muddled up.”

Stella claimed that McLaren wanted to give themselves the best opportunity to design their car so that they could maximize performance before the first day of the first pre-season test in Spain the following week.

The Barcelona Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where teams are permitted to run for three of the five days, is held behind closed doors and with no access to independent media.

Mercedes are scheduled to run at Silverstone on Thursday while the new Cadillac, Audi, and Racing Bulls have already conducted “shakedown” tests on their vehicles. Aston Martin and other drivers are known to follow McLaren’s plan by not running until well before the Barcelona test.

We won’t be testing on day one because we intend to start testing either in day two or day three, according to Stella.

Every day of development, every day of design, we wanted to give ourselves the most time for development, because that is how performance is added.

F1 racing in 2026 “may look a little strange,” according to Stella.

Energy management will determine whether on-track running occurs because the electrical component of hybrid engines currently accounts for only about 50% of the total power output, but there is only so much energy to be recovered.

Drivers will also have to choose how much energy to expend at various points throughout the lap for optimal racing.

The idea that one car can easily overtake another one may seem a little strange, Stella said.

The spectators must understand why that was so easily [done], or even why the battery in one car is already full while the battery in the car ahead is already completely empty. Therefore, something [new] is emerging from a racing perspective.

In order to communicate effectively with our spectators, power-unit exploitation will be of particular importance as a racing and overtaking variable.

Mark Temple, the technical director for performance at McLaren, stated, “We now have a similar battery, but you have more power. So that you can use that much more in a single straight and benefit from the extra battery life in that particular one even more.

“But perhaps your]battery pack isn’t there. You’ll enter the next corner with only what you were able to recover from that corner if you choose to use all of the energy in boost mode. And that could expose you in a following straight, which perhaps wouldn’t have been possible before.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who were competing for the championship last season, were given a different operating model by McLaren, according to Stella, who stated that the agreement to allow them to compete would continue into 2026.

As they attempted to operate in what they thought was fair, the team faced a number of challenging circumstances.

Norris was given permission to compete in the Hungarian Grand Prix, which led to him defeating Paistri, who was ahead in the early stages of the race.

After the Briton lost out following a team’s discussion of strategy and a slow pit stop, Piastri was given the order to return second to Norris in Italy.

And there were instances in Singapore and Austin where drivers had to handle their vehicles as well, with varying degrees of severity.

Both drivers remained firm in their determination throughout because they both wanted the championship to be won the most. Max Verstappen won the championship by two points, with Paistri coming in third.

We talked a lot about McLaren internal racing last year. From that perspective, continuity will prevail in 2026, Stella asserted. “We will continue to race the McLaren way.”

What adds more value is the way in which we have worked with our drivers to achieve success in a collaborative, supportive, and cooperative manner in 2024 and then in 2025.

All of this has helped us to reaffirm in our minds that the values of fairness, integrity, equal opportunities, sportsmanship are essential for both the team and Oscar. They are, if anything, confirmed and consolidated.

However, Stella acknowledged that the team could “streamline” operations.

We all acknowledge that the volume of work involved internal competition, for instance, was significant, he said.

Any efforts we can make to some extent make this racing together more enjoyable. In reality, fine tuning will be necessary because, in the majority of cases, we will state that this is what we will still do in the future.