McLaren pinpoints where Mercedes’ F1 car is faster than its upgraded MCL40

McLaren is convinced Mercedes remains the team to beat in the 2026 Formula 1 season despite significantly closing the gap at the Miami Grand Prix.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s third consecutive victory ensured Mercedes continued its unbeaten start to the campaign in Miami, but McLaren ran the Silver Arrows close as Lando Norris took second ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri, who completed a double podium for the Woking squad in third.

McLaren’s strong performance in Miami - which started with pole and victory in the sprint race - came after the reigning world champions brought a substantial upgrade package to the fourth round of the season.

Despite an impressive competitive showing with its revised MCL40 challenger, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella insisted the Mercedes W17 is still the benchmark.

“I think there's a few indications of a different nature, but all kind of quantitative, that tell that Mercedes is a faster car,” Stella explained to media including Crash.net.

“In qualifying, we see that Mercedes don't have any problem with deployment like they had in the sprint qualy. And on average, if we see the behaviour of the car in the corners, they are faster than us.

"The corners in which they are mainly faster than us are the high-speed corners. So in the section 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, they gained quite a bit on McLaren. And then in the race, if we look at the end of the first stint and then the end of the last stint, Antonelli in the first closes the gap and in the last opens the gap.

“So I think all these factors indicate that Mercedes is a faster car. When we were slower, our execution was perfect, like in the sprint qualifying, and their execution was a few tenths off their potential.”

The result leaves McLaren third in the constructors’ championship on 94 points, 86 points adrift of Mercedes.

Up until Miami, McLaren had had a difficult start to the season. Norris finished a distant fifth in Australia, while both McLaren’s cars failed to start in China. In Japan, Piastri recorded the team’s first podium.

Despite a tricky start, McLaren is determined to defend its world championship titles. 

“I think if we now start to consider championships at the end of the season, then I think we need to be a bit careful because we are just at the fourth race,” Stella added.

“We have just delivered our first upgrade. We are in Miami and McLaren looks like traditionally have done very well in Miami, so it could be that the way we develop our cars kind of suits this circuit, so we will have to see more.

“At the same time, it's only the fourth race and we have scored a good chunk of points even compared to Mercedes and we know that we can further develop our car.

“We have said already before Miami that the championship is not a sign-off, so our logic is to look at the long term, try and defend the championship.

“But as soon as we say that, we come back in the present and we do the right thing today because there's really not much point in thinking so far forward. But definitely, we want to defend the championship.”