McLaren boss reveals secret behind stunning F1 revival

McLaren boss Andrea Stella has hailed the team's success rate with its upgrades, something that has played a key role in Lando Norris taking back-to-back Formula 1 victories. 

Norris got his title defence back on track with victories in Hungary and Zandvoort, showing strong pace across both weekends before taking home the silverware.

McLaren has previously conceded that its lack of early pace this season was partly the result of a development hangover from last year, when it Norris and Oscar Piastri had been embroiled in a tense championship fight with Max Verstappen. 

But unlike Red Bull, McLaren has been able to rapidly develop its car to race-winning ways. 

"The item that I can recall not having a straight introduction to racing was probably the front wing, where we had a couple of modifications to make sure that the intent was met as we introduced the front wing," said Stella. "This was around the Canada time. 

"Otherwise, I think the rate of success of our upgrades has been relatively high, in continuation with what we had in the previous seasons, in terms of delivering upgrades from development to the full-scale car.

"However, I've always also said that, I think with this regulation, this seems to be more of a general [trend] I think for everyone. It's slightly easier to find confirmation of their expectation for development with what they deliver on the car in terms of upgrades."

The budget cap and aerodynamic testing restrictions mean that teams cannot just throw unlimited resources at a problem as was the case in previous eras, something that increases the focus on ensuring a strong success rate with new developments. 

"Some aspects of the aerodynamic development are slightly easier than they were last year, especially towards the maturity of the regulations last year, where it made it really difficult to improve the car," Stella explained.

"So, I'm happy with the developments here. The amount of upgrades [in Zandvoort] was relatively smaller than what we had in Hungary. It was, to some extent, almost track-specific, because we had a higher downforce rear wing. 

"This is not sufficient to have a lead/ While we are very competitive in qualifying, we saw that in the Sprint race, for instance, there's still some work to do in terms of tyre degradation and tyre condition."

Teams are currently on differing upgrade strategies, with Mercedes having put a large focus on pushing development ahead of the campaign, which yielded an early advantage, with this since being cut drastically as rival teams have introduced their packages.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claimed that his team is short on budget and therefore cannot compete with upgrades on the level of McLaren in the closing rounds, but Stella was not buying this line. 

"Thanks to the 2027 power unit regulations, all teams will have an allowance in their reporting for the cost cap, and I think if I'm not wrong, it's like three million that you can use in the 2026 reporting for cost cap calculations," he said. 

"I'm sure that Mercedes, having seen that the rivals are kind of elevating the game, I'm sure they will now cash in on their development that surely is happening in the background. 

"I'm sure their car in the wind tunnel is quite a bit faster than the car they have on track, and they will want to now convert some of this potential into upgrades that make it to the real car. So I'm just like pretty sure that they will have upgrades. Obviously, it would be good if not, but I don't even want to think it."