- Andrea Stella insists McLaren’s 2026 title bid is alive despite a 113-point deficit.
- Power unit failures and a double DNS in China derailed reigning champions’ season.
- Miami’s aero upgrades signal a recovery, with more updates already in the pipeline.
Andrea Stella said ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix that McLaren can still win the 2026 Formula 1 championship, despite sitting third in the standings, 113 points behind Mercedes after five races.
The team principal spoke to GPblog and other media outlets on Thursday. He acknowledged that the season had fallen short of expectations while arguing that the title remains open.
His confidence rested on the car’s development direction and the team’s improving knowledge of its Mercedes-supplied power unit.
McLaren entered 2026 as defending champions. Stella had spoken in December last year about the possibility of the team winning titles with such consistency that it would feel routine. Five races in, that picture looks very different.
A season that unravelled almost before it began
The 2026 regulations brought major changes to how hybrid-electrical power is generated and deployed.
McLaren has not been able to keep pace with the works Mercedes team despite using the same power unit. Mercedes has won every race and sprint under the new regulations, except one: the Miami Sprint Race.
McLaren’s start to the season was damaging in ways that went beyond pure pace. Oscar Piastri crashed out of the season-opening race in Australia even before he made it to the grid.
Then, in China, both Piastri and Lando Norris failed to start due to separate electrical faults with their power units. It was the first time McLaren had not taken part in a round since the United States Grand Prix in 2005.
Norris did not try to dress it up. “We just have to take it on the chin, learn what the problem was, and make sure it never happens again,” he said after the race.
“Everyone in the team is frustrated, our engineers, mechanics and HPP teammates. All of us want to go racing and score points.”
Japan brought some relief. Piastri finished second, giving McLaren its first podium of the year. Miami followed with genuine momentum, as Norris took pole for the Sprint and converted it into a win, with Piastri finishing second to complete a 1-2 for the team.
Canada took that momentum away almost immediately. Piastri collected a 10-second penalty after contact with Alexander Albon on lap 13 and finished 11th.
Norris retired mid-race with a suspected transmission failure. Piastri, reflecting on a tyre strategy call that went wrong when the rain did not come, put it plainly:
“If it rained a little bit more, we would have looked like heroes. It didn’t, so we looked like idiots.”
“The championship is not signed off”: Stella’s stance
Stella did not arrive in Monaco looking for a way to manage expectations downward. He acknowledged the season had gone below what the team had planned for. But he made clear he had not written off the title fight.
“There’s encouraging indication in terms of the development of the car and how much we are learning in terms of power unit exploitation,” he told GPblog and other media.
“It’s definitely below what would have been our expectation to be in contention for the championship, but at the same time, we want to take the positives.”
That reference to learning about the new power units is crucial. McLaren’s unit is supplied by Mercedes’ High Performance Powertrains division, and it has caused a few problems this season.
By framing part of the gap as a knowledge problem rather than a hardware one, Stella was pointing to something the team believes it can fix before too long.
He was equally direct about where he wants the championship to be decided.
“We don’t think very much about what’s been,” he said. “And we definitely believe that the championship is not signed off. We want to be in this championship, and we want the championship to be decided in Abu Dhabi.”
When asked whether Miami had given him confidence the team could defend both titles, Stella was measured but honest.
“I think when we look in particular at the Constructors’ Championship, I think we are, from a driver’s point of view, probably the strongest pair,” he said. “We want to capitalise on this strength that we have at McLaren, but we need to make the car a little bit faster.”
Development trajectory offers genuine reasons to believe
Stella’s optimism is not without basis. McLaren had planned a significant aerodynamic upgrade package for the North American rounds, and Miami showed it working.
Stella said the team felt “extremely satisfied with the weekend, very encouraged, not only because in a single weekend we scored more points than the three previous races, but also because of the trend that we have established.”
He also signalled that more updates were on the way. “We know that we have some more upgrades coming, which are kind of coming from the same group, so we are optimistic that they may allow us to take some further steps forward,” he said.
The pattern has a precedent. In 2023, McLaren made a major mid-season upgrade push that transformed their competitive standing. The team knows it can recover ground if the development programme moves in the right direction.
Stella also said the team’s understanding of the complex 2026 hybrid system had grown significantly. That accumulated knowledge, as much as any single upgrade, appears to be what he is counting on as the season develops.
Ferrari tipped as Monaco threat, but McLaren sees its own opportunity
Stella used his Monaco preview to address Ferrari directly. Norris had already flagged the Scuderia as a likely favourite on the streets of Monte Carlo. Stella backed that view with specific evidence.
“I think when we look at the overlay based on the GPS speed, we can see that Ferrari is definitely a competitive chassis in the corners,” Stella said.
“Like the first sector [in Canada], they’ve always been very competitive. It’s not only a low-speed sector, but it’s also a sector with curbing. Normally, these features tend to reward in a track like Monaco.”
In Canada, Ferrari’s smaller turbo design had cost it time on the straights. Monaco has almost none of those. Stella was direct about what that means.
“I think Lando is quite right in seeing Ferrari as possibly the favourite car for pole position in Monaco,” he said.
But Stella also identified a reason to think McLaren would not simply fall in line. Monaco’s many hard braking points give drivers more chances to recharge the battery under the 2026 rules, which he noted would suit the circuit’s rhythm.
He also said the track’s character aligned better with where McLaren’s car currently is in its development cycle. Ferrari may start as favourites in Monte Carlo. However, Stella is not conceding the weekend or the season to anyone.
