SINGAPORE — McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has conceded the team cannot improve their Formula 1 car handling characteristics without fundamental changes that will not be possible until 2027. Stella said the issue, which has hamstrung McLaren's progress against their frontrunning rivals all season, requires more than incremental upgrades and will only be addressed with the all-new MCL41.
Stella explained: “I don't expect that what's coming to the car will improve this characteristic. I think we need something more fundamental than simply adding some downforce to the car like it's happening in the coming races. Without fundamentally changing some further aspect which we are addressing longer term and at the earliest I would say with the MCL41 for 2027.” After the Singapore Grand Prix, Lando Norris detailed the difficulty, saying: “It's [the car] just on a knife edge on every single corner. You've just got to drive it within an exact percent, and you have to force the car in every single way. You can't let the car do any work. You can't just let the front do the work, or the rear do the work. You have to force the front; you've got to force the rear.”
Norris added the car demands total concentration and is mentally draining, making it impossible to string laps together in qualifying and leaving drivers unable to produce anything magical when outright pace is lacking. Stella said that intensity has been a feature of McLaren's car all season as Norris and Oscar Piastri have adapted to the new generation of V6 turbo hybrids with increased electrical power, often requiring unnatural techniques.
Stella believes the characteristic has struck Piastri harder due to his natural driving style. “The fact that the car needs quite a lot of effort to deliver lap time, and it requires a level of intensity in the driving input, which is much superior to last year, this is something that took some time for the drivers to understand,” he explained. He added it is one reason Piastri at some stage lost competitiveness compared to Norris, noting the Australian had to learn to force the car and abandon his signature clean, repeatable style. The issue follows Norris and Piastri's clash in Singapore that tested McLaren's papaya rules.