McLaren alone among the front-runners gambled on intermediates at the start in Canada. The team admitted the call was wrong, defended its logic, and watched rivals capitalise.
Lando Norris collected six sprint points in Canada by inheriting second place from a furious Kimi Antonelli, then refused to celebrate it. In his post-race interview, the McLaren driver delivered an unusually candid pace verdict: ten seconds behind, another level adrift, and saved only by Mercedes fighting each other.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown has answered fresh Red Bull rumours around Oscar Piastri by reframing the entire question — the contract exists, he says, but it is not the argument that will keep the Australian.
Andrea Stella confirmed publicly that the MCL40's biggest 2026 update was always meant to land in two parts. Miami was the front. Canada is the rear. The sprint format means the verdict comes inside the first hour of Friday running.
McLaren built Formula 1's dream driver line-up. Five rounds into the 2026 reset, a deployment integration gap with works-team Mercedes has the paddock quietly asking which one of them leaves first.
Reigning world champion Lando Norris has retraced the 2016 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award that took him from teenage karting graduate to a McLaren simulator deal — and to the F1 seat he still occupies. Speaking to Motorsport.com before a Sprint-format Canadian Grand Prix, Norris was straightforward about where his career began and how committed he remains to Woking.
Sky's Craig Slater reports Gianpiero Lambiase will leave Red Bull for a head of race engineering role at McLaren in 2028 — and the move 'absolutely' raises the odds of Verstappen leaving too.
McLaren has finally said something publicly about the Lewis Hamilton return rumour — but the precise wording it picked, and what it deliberately did not say, looks designed to leave space for a story it is not yet ready to confirm or kill.
Sky F1 analyst Karun Chandhok says senior figures at both Mercedes and McLaren walked out of Miami satisfied that Ferrari's headline 2026 upgrade has not produced the championship-grade pace Maranello had promised. Hamilton's repeated battery-deployment complaints are cited as a key tell.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown has tried to put a lid on speculation that Max Verstappen could follow incoming Chief Racing Officer Gianpiero Lambiase to Woking, while leaving a small opening for any future driver vacancy.
Juan Pablo Montoya has reignited the Piastri-Verstappen straight-swap rumour, claiming Mark Webber is unhappy with how McLaren is handling Oscar Piastri. Ralf Schumacher and David Croft have already weighed in.
Laurent Mekies has accepted Gianpiero Lambiase's exit to McLaren as 'an extraordinary opportunity', warning Red Bull will keep poaching from the pitlane — while Andrea Stella laughs off rumours of a McLaren-to-Red Bull move of his own.
Beaten on outright pace and out of pole on Saturday, Mercedes still won the 2026 Miami Grand Prix on the back of a 2.2-second pit stop, an early undercut decision and a textbook Antonelli outlap on Lando Norris.
Reigning constructors' champion McLaren has emerged as the loudest paddock voice arguing F1's 2026 power unit regulations need to be reopened, with Andrea Stella naming fuel-flow changes as the route and warning the political decision must be finalised before the summer break.
Oscar Piastri's honest numbers on McLaren's Suzuka weekend turn a decent podium into one of the season's more sobering progress reports.
Two weeks after both McLarens failed to finish in Shanghai because of battery faults, Andrea Stella used the Suzuka paddock to close ranks around his Mercedes-supplied power unit partner.
Lewis Hamilton has stopped softening Ferrari's 2026 engine deficit and called it what it is — a McLaren-Mercedes hardware advantage that will require 'a huge amount of work' to close.
Andrea Stella's pitch for fixing the 2026 regulations has less to do with yo-yo racing or qualifying optics and more to do with a philosophical argument — that the sport is punishing drivers for exploiting the grip their cars produce.
McLaren suffered a double DNS at the Chinese Grand Prix, with neither driver able to start the race. Team Principal Andrea Stella called it disappointing, particularly as Oscar Piastri has now missed both opening rounds of 2026, creating significant challenges for the team's championship hopes and development program.
Leonardo Fornaroli, the 2023 F2 champion, has been appointed as McLaren's reserve, test, and development driver for the upcoming 2026 F1 season, complementing their dynamic roster.
