“That’s not how you work in F1”: McLaren raises questions over Mercedes advantage

The opening weekend of the 2026 Formula 1 season has already triggered uncomfortable questions inside the paddock, and McLaren may be the first team openly acknowledging them.

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After arriving in Australia as one of the expected contenders, the Woking outfit instead found itself dramatically off the pace of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team works squad.

The gap was stark. While George Russell led a dominant Mercedes one-two finish with teammate Kimi Antonelli, McLaren’s Lando Norris finished the race more than 50 seconds adrift.

For a team that only a year ago was fighting for championships, the sudden drop in competitiveness has forced McLaren to confront a difficult possibility: the new 2026 regulations may have shifted the balance of power toward the manufacturers.

The straight-line puzzle

McLaren’s struggles were not limited to corner performance or tyre behavior.

Data analysis from the Australian Grand Prix revealed that a significant portion of the time lost to Mercedes occurred on the straights — an unexpected development given that both teams run the same Mercedes power unit.

Under the new 2026 regulations, the importance of energy harvesting and deployment strategies has increased dramatically. Small variations in how electrical energy is stored and released across a lap can now translate into major differences in lap time.

The implication is uncomfortable: knowledge of the system may matter as much as the hardware itself.

The works team advantage

In theory, Formula 1 regulations guarantee equality between manufacturers and customers. The rules require that teams receive identical power unit specifications, software and operational parameters. But reality can be more complicated.

Manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz have spent years developing the architecture of their power units and the software that controls them. That deeper understanding naturally allows their works teams to exploit the systems more effectively — particularly in the early stages of a new regulation cycle.

Customer teams, by contrast, must often discover the limits of the system through track running and analysis.

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A new technical language

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella suggested that the challenge lies in adapting to what is effectively a completely new technical paradigm.

“In a way, this is a new language and a new way of thinking,” Stella explained.

The complexity of the energy systems means that even minor details, such as entering a corner with the battery fractionally more charged, can influence performance several corners later.

For teams still learning how to manage that process, the margin for error is extremely small.

McLaren searching for answers

Stella admitted that the team is still trying to fully understand how to extract the maximum potential from the power unit. Something that normally would be predicted through simulation before the car even reaches the track.

Instead, McLaren has been reacting to what it observes during running.

“That’s not how you work in Formula 1,” Stella admitted.

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The team believes improvements will come, both from car development and a deeper understanding of the power unit’s behaviour.

But the early evidence from Australia has already sparked debate across the paddock about whether the 2026 rules have unintentionally tilted the competitive balance back toward the works teams.

For McLaren, the challenge now is clear: close the knowledge gap before the season slips away.