Changing of the guard
No more papaya-colored parades, one-twos and arguments over pilot rules of engagement. With the advent of the new technical regulation the supremacy that McLaren had imposed on the Circus in the last year and a half, winning two consecutive Constructors’ titles and winning the 2025 Drivers’ World Championship with Lando Norris is gone. The Woking team is still in battle with Red Bull, but this time the duel concerns the role of third-fourth force on the grid. Mercedes, but also Ferrari, are much further ahead.
So many problems to solve
All that remains is to take note of it Andrea Stellawho commented to the microphones at the end of the Melbourne race Sky Sports F1 what happened in the first GP of the season. A Sunday started very badly for McLaren, with the accident that took away Oscar Piastri even before the start: “It was important to finish the race – declared the McLaren team principal – but we end it with just one pilot. Unfortunately for Oscar there was a problem on the alignment lap: while he was going on the curb the power unit behaved in a somewhat unexpected way and this caused the spin. With Norris we finished the race and it’s important, but the we finish 50 seconds behind the leader“.
“We know there is some performance we need to find – added the Italian manager – and that there is performance in the way we use the power unit. Looking at the data and looking at the speed comparison with Mercedes, clearly they are doing a better job than us of using the power unit. There is also performance to be found in the corners, because at the moment we don’t have enough downforce, so the objectives are clear. Graining? In this race I would say that the hard tires strangely had more graining than the medium tires and we maintained a trend in 2026 that we also had in the past; when there is graining in the front tires we tend to have a little more than the others”concluded Stella.
