Andrea Stella has explained how McLaren will be utilising April to the best of their ability as they look to “fight for more important positions” from Miami onwards.
McLaren had a challenging start to the 2026 season, with Oscar Piastri failing to start in Melbourne after crashing on his way to the grid in dry conditions, while neither car started the Chinese Grand Prix thanks to electrical issues.
But the Australian did see the lights in Japan, leading in the opening stages and ultimately finishing second behind Kimi Antonelli for McLaren’s best result of the season.
However, the reigning World Champions will hope to challenge Mercedes for wins going forward and are looking to use the April pause productively, having been fighting right up to the final race of 2025 as Lando Norris eventually claimed the Drivers’ Championship title.
“Effectively, because of having been such a programme, such an intense programme, quite pushed from a timeline point of view, actually this pause is welcomed,” explained Stella.
“I think, for McLaren as a team, it gives us the possibility to make the parts that we want to take trackside to evolve our car, make it faster, especially when it comes to aerodynamic performance. I think it gives us some more time to work with HPP (Mercedes High Performance Powertrains), for instance, finalising all the tools that are required to exploit the power unit.
“Importantly, it also gives the staff the time to take a little bit of a breath because it’s been one of the most intense winters that I can remember in my career in Formula 1. Definitely once we started to go trackside, and winter testing itself has been very intense, very busy.
“So I think it’s good that in what is going to be another long season, we have the time to take a breath and we have the time to catch up from an operational and technical point of view so that we can be, as a team, specifically talking about McLaren, in condition to fight for more important positions once we race back, starting from Miami.”
With McLaren running the Mercedes power unit, the papaya squad still need to work out the best way to utilise an engine that appears to be the class of the field so far in 2026. But Stella also admitted the chassis needs work too, if McLaren want to fight for victories from here on.
“Coming back on the chassis side, we understand exactly what to do in terms of putting in place the actions to improve the chassis furthermore,” he said. “In fact, it’s just about bringing upgrades that will increase the aerodynamic efficiency.
“These will happen in the next couple of events, so I think from there we should see a positive trajectory and we are confident that McLaren will be in condition to compete for podiums and victories on merit within this season.”
McLaren may have started 2026 with a dip in form compared to their last two championship-winning campaigns, but the squad have shown previously that their in-season developments can deliver strong performance.
“If anything, McLaren, at least since when I’m Team Principal right now, is in its strongest version as a team,” Stella added. “We have never had this level of capabilities and infrastructure, we have never had before, even when we were winning championships, this level of expertise and talent in the team.
“I’ve never seen, like I said before, Lando and Oscar working so well together, and I can see that the pattern that led us in the last three years to just instigate such an upward trajectory, I can see that this pattern is forming up.
“So, I think there’s all the reasons to be very encouraged looking at the future and, like I said before, hopefully we will start to see some improvements already in the next events.”
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