McLaren Bets on Summer Upgrade Push to Close Gap to Rivals
NXTbets Pro | Published On: July 9, 2026
McLaren criticism grows
Lando Norris left the British Grand Prix at Silverstone with a blunt assessment of McLaren’s current level. He said the team needs “many things better” and more upgrades if it wants to move closer to the front. Norris called the car “pretty poor” and said it was one of the hardest Formula 1 cars he has ever driven. He also said rival teams have kept improving while McLaren has failed to match that pace, which has left the team chasing the field rather than shaping the fight at the front.
The issue, from Norris’s view, is not limited to one weekend. McLaren had not brought a major upgrade since the Miami Grand Prix, and the smaller changes it did introduce did not produce the gains it expected. That has left the team in a holding pattern at a time when the top groups keep adding performance. Norris also pushed back on the style of racing seen at tracks like Silverstone, where energy management plays a major part. He said that is “not how Formula 1 should be,” a pointed comment that underlined his frustration with both the car and the way McLaren is having to race it.
McLaren development shifts
Andrea Stella has acknowledged that McLaren is already changing its direction for 2026 because of the upcoming regulation changes. He said the team initially moved toward some concepts for the next rules cycle, then backed away from them after gaining more information about the new rule set. That reset has made the summer stretch a key point in the team’s planning. Stella said McLaren’s best chance to reverse its 2026 season will come from a major upgrade push around Formula 1’s summer shutdown, with development work planned both before and after the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Stella also pointed to the way McLaren’s 2025 campaign started. He said delays in the development cycle left the team behind its rivals early in the season, and that gap has been hard to close. The team is now trying to correct course with a clearer view of where the new rules are heading and where its own package needs to improve. Stella said aerodynamic development has become the main battleground in Formula 1, with mechanical setup carrying less weight than it did in previous generations of cars. That makes the next upgrade phase more important for McLaren, since raw car performance now drives the competition more than fine-tuning alone.
Rivals and standings
Stella’s reading of Silverstone was measured, not celebratory. He said Norris’s fourth-place finish was an overachievement for McLaren’s current pace, not proof that the team had closed the gap to its rivals. He said the result was shaped more by problems affecting other teams than by a genuine breakthrough from McLaren. That view fits the wider picture around the team. Stella said McLaren was roughly half a second behind Mercedes and Ferrari after the British Grand Prix, a margin that shows how much ground remains to be covered before McLaren can fight those teams on merit over a full weekend.
The standings tell the same story. McLaren is 154 points behind Mercedes in the constructors’ championship. Ferrari has moved ahead after winning two of the last three races. McLaren has still not won a race this season and has managed only four podium finishes. Those numbers leave the team in a difficult spot, with upgrades, direction and timing all under pressure at once. Norris has made the criticism public. Stella has answered by pointing toward the next development window. The message from McLaren is clear, the team sees the summer as a chance to reset, but it also knows the current gap to the front is still wide.
