McLaren hold back upgrades: little for Mexico, more for Brazil and Las Vegas
After four races without a podium, McLaren will bring only a small selection of parts to Mexico City. Team principal Andrea Stella says the next real upgrades are planned for Brazil and Las Vegas, while Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris describe a car that is hard to drive in slow corners.
A quiet weekend in Mexico
McLaren arrive at the Mexico City Grand Prix with a car that, by the team's own description, will stay essentially unchanged. Only a small selection of parts is due to reach the track after the changes to the front and rear corners that debuted in Austin, according to Sky Sports and PlanetF1.
Team principal Andrea Stella said the bigger steps will come later: there will be upgrades in Brazil and Las Vegas, but not very many in Mexico. He added that the aim is to be consistently in the podium fight, with race wins as the longer-term goal.
What the drivers say
Oscar Piastri was frank about the picture. "I don't think we're massively strong at the moment," he said, according to PlanetF1. In his view the upgrades are delivering what McLaren expected, but rivals are adding performance faster. Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari have all moved forward, and Piastri said the new parts do not make the car easier to drive, which he sees as the team's biggest problem.
Lando Norris agreed that McLaren currently has the fourth-quickest car. He named slow-speed cornering as the main weakness, a trait the MCL40 inherited from its predecessor despite the new regulations, and said the team needs much more rear grip there. Sky Sports reports that Norris estimates the car loses almost three tenths of a second per lap in slow corners.
By the numbers
Our race data shows how the season has drifted. McLaren have stood on the podium in seven of the 18 races so far: Piastri was second in Suzuka and third in Miami, Norris was second in Miami, third in Barcelona and Madrid, and won in Budapest and Zandvoort. The most recent podium was Norris's third place in Madrid.
Since then Baku, Kuala Lumpur, Marina Bay and Austin have passed without one. In Austin Norris finished fifth and Piastri seventh. Piastri's last podium was third place in Miami.
What comes next
Mexico City is a circuit Norris is reported to like, but with so little new on the car, the next visible test of McLaren's development is Brazil, the following race weekend. Las Vegas then follows. Kimi Antonelli can clinch the drivers' title in Mexico with two points, so McLaren's chase for the podium will play out alongside that story.
