McLaren upgrades will be limited at the Mexico City Grand Prix, but the team plans further development through Brazil and Las Vegas as it tries to recover front-running form in the closing rounds of the 2026 Formula 1 season. The team has not finished on the podium in the last four races since Lando Norris missed victory in Madrid, despite bringing new parts to the MCL40 in that period.
McLaren upgrades arrive after Austin reset
Team principal Andrea Stella said more parts are coming, though Mexico will see only a small delivery. “There will be some more stuff coming,” Stella said. “I think ultimately we will only be able to do so across Brazil and Vegas. So, Mexico there won't be very much, but Brazil and Vegas there will be some upgrades.”
Stella framed the package as a route back to consistent podium contention rather than an immediate fix. “Hopefully this will help us to be consistently in the fight for podiums and hopefully start to lean on the level of competitiveness that is required to fight for the victory,” he said. “So, there's a few upgrades that are still in the pipeline.”
McLaren’s pre-Mexico press release said the car will remain essentially unchanged after the front and rear corner changes introduced in Austin. A small selection of parts will reach the track in Mexico City through the team’s development pathway, with further developments planned from Sao Paulo onward.
Norris finds a knife-edge in slow corners
Norris qualified eighth at the United States Grand Prix and called the MCL40 “easily the hardest car I’ve ever driven in my life.” He ran second late in the race on an alternative one-stop strategy but was passed by Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, dropping to fifth. Oscar Piastri finished seventh.
The qualifying record shows how narrow the car’s operating window has been. Norris has taken three pole positions this year in Budapest, Zandvoort and Madrid, but his largest margin to second place in those sessions was 0.102s. Piastri has struggled more with the same knife-edge balance.
Norris pointed to slow-speed corners as the clearest deficit. “I think in Austin it was clear the slow-speed corners we lost almost three tenths a lap, every single lap,” he told Sky Sports F1. “That's a chunky bit of lap time to lose so consistently.” He added that the team knows roughly where it needs to improve but has found the area difficult to address as much as it would like.
Mexico City offers a different load case
Sky Sports F1’s Anthony Davidson said McLaren’s car suits high-grip surfaces and medium-to-high-speed corners more than the conditions in Austin or Malaysia. “Mexico is a track Lando likes,” Davidson said. “It’s not a bumpy track, so let’s see how Lando can go there this year. It’s one of his best tracks and he dominated last year’s race there.”
Mexico City will therefore test whether McLaren’s small parts delivery can stabilise the car before the larger upgrades arrive. The team’s immediate target is to keep both drivers in the podium fight while reducing the slow-corner time loss that has compromised qualifying and race execution.
The Mexico City Grand Prix is the second leg of the Americas triple-header and will be shown live on Sky Sports F1 this weekend. After Mexico, the development timeline points to Sao Paulo and Las Vegas as the significant steps.
The development race against 2027
Most teams have stopped development on their 2026 cars to focus on the 2027 cars, which makes McLaren’s continued upgrade path unusual. The team said it “remains committed to learning, developing and extracting the maximum from the MCL40 at every opportunity.”
That commitment carries risk and reward. Every new part must deliver the expected performance on track while the car’s narrow balance window leaves little margin for error. McLaren’s season now hinges on whether the Brazil and Vegas packages can widen that window enough to convert qualifying pace into race-long performance.
For now, Mexico is a holding race with a small parts selection, a track that may flatter Norris, and a clear engineering question: can McLaren reduce the slow-corner deficit before the final upgrades arrive?
Original report: skysports.com.
