The forced pause that the war in Iran imposed on Formula 1’s calendar arrived at the most convenient moment for McLaren. While the paddock processes an uneven start to the season, team principal Andrea Stella is direct about what comes next: the coming weeks are not a rest period, they are a working window the papaya squad intends to exploit fully before the Miami Grand Prix.

McLaren’s 2026 start could hardly have been more turbulent. Oscar Piastri did not start in Melbourne after crashing on his formation lap in dry conditions. In China, neither car took the start due to electrical issues with the power unit. Japan was the team’s first complete weekend — Piastri led in the opening stages and finished second behind Kimi Antonelli, the team’s best result of the year so far. It is not the launchpad the back-to-back world champions had planned, but Stella believes it is a foundation solid enough to build on.

“This pause is welcomed,” Stella admitted plainly. “It gives us the possibility to make the parts we want to take trackside to evolve our car, make it faster, especially when it comes to aerodynamic performance. It also gives us more time to work with HPP” — Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, the division that manufactures and develops the engines McLaren runs — “finalising all the tools required to exploit the power unit.”

Because McLaren’s 2026 problem is not purely a chassis issue. The team shares its engine with championship-leading Mercedes, but has yet to find the optimal way to deploy that same power unit. Bridging that gap in energy management is part of the work Stella describes for the coming weeks, and it sits alongside the aerodynamic upgrades (improvements to how air flows efficiently around the car) the team has scheduled for the next events.

“Coming back on the chassis side, we understand exactly what to do in terms of putting in place the actions to improve the chassis furthermore. It’s just about bringing upgrades that will increase the aerodynamic efficiency. These will happen in the next couple of events, so from there we should see a positive trajectory,” Stella explained. “We are confident that McLaren will be in condition to compete for podiums and victories on merit within this season.”

There is one factor Stella did not overlook — and it speaks to the team’s maturity. The preparation winter for 2026, combined with the final stretch of 2025 where Lando Norris claimed the drivers’ title in the season’s final race, left the team operating at the edge of its capacity for months. “It’s been one of the most intense winters I can remember in my career in Formula 1,” the Italian admitted. The break, he said, gives staff the time to breathe before what will be another long second half of the season.

McLaren arrives in Miami without a win in 2026. But Stella is right about something the numbers support: this team has shown over the last three years that it knows how to grow within a season. The question is not whether it will improve — it is when that improvement will be enough to beat Mercedes.

Thumbnail: By courtesy of Pirelli