McLaren confirm shortcomings in Mercedes-Ferrari F1 battle

McLaren boss Andrea Stella is confident the team has found “clear indications” as to where the team is lacking compared to Formula 1 pace-setters Mercedes and Ferrari.

Ferrari ended Mercedes’ early dominance of the F1 season in Barcelona, with Lando Norris following second-placed George Russell home in third place.

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is viewed as one of the more ‘traditional’ layouts on the schedule, with the first proper running of the 2026 cars having taken place at the venue earlier this year.

As a rule of thumb, a strong car in Spain is a strong car for the campaign, and this thought process cemented McLaren’s strengths and weaknesses in Stella’s mind.

“This race gives us very clear indications, he said.

“I think these indications in a way they are consistent with what we knew already. These indications are that Ferrari, at the moment, is the car with the best chassis. We see in the middle sector, especially in the medium speed corners, that Ferrari is the fastest in the corners, not necessarily the fastest in the straights.

“We see that from a McLaren point of view, we are competitive in the high-speed corners, like you are in corners three, nine, and 14, but overall, we struggle with grip in medium speed and low speed.”

As for what needs to be done to close the gap to those ahead, Stella added: “Very clear indications, as we knew already that we have to add grip to the car of an aerodynamic nature to add load onto the tyres.

“Then, we also have to improve the way we interact with the tyres in terms of qualifying preparation for what comes to the first corner for instance we see that often in qualifying we lose time at the start. But then in conditions like this, in the race, we would like to reduce tyre degradation.

 “So quite a clear agenda from a performance point of view. We need to add aerodynamic performance. We need to add solutions for a better tyre exploitation.”