According to Motorsport.com, McLaren is bringing fresh updates to its MCL40 Formula 1 machine for this weekend's Brazil Grand Prix, featuring a front wing concept that is expected to carry straight over onto the 2027 challenger.
That said, the team has slipped down the pecking order lately. After surging to the front when it substantially updated the MCL40 in Hungary—resulting in Lando Norris winning that round and the next one at Zandvoort—subsequent packages in Baku and Austin failed to keep them on top. In fact, McLaren has held the fourth-quickest car in the last four qualifying sessions, averaging a 0.511s deficit to pole position and a 0.236s gap to the third-fastest challenger.
We know what we need to improve on, it just takes time, and hopefully we can have a better day in Brazil.
Even so, the development cycle rolls on. As Peter Prodromou, chief technical officer, aerodynamics, explained: “We’ve got some updates coming to the car across the front wing, rear wing and some floor components as part of our normal development cycle. The aim is to make up ground, improve our performance over the remaining races and build momentum into next year.” Prodromou also noted that Sao Paulo has historically been a strong and representative circuit for the squad.
There are pressing matters in the present, too. McLaren faces a 17-point deficit to third-placed Red Bull in the standings, having collected just 59 points compared to its rival's 152 over the last five rounds. Yet the recent Mexican race offered some encouragement, with Lando Norris taking fifth place just 12 seconds adrift of race winner Max Verstappen.
Despite that finish, Lando Norris remained cautious about the immediate future. “If we look at Baku and stuff, I think we're still going to be struggling for pace,” he said on Sunday evening. “So we need to improve the car in certain tracks and certain areas still a lot more. Today it was good, but I'm not convinced that if we go back to the tracks we struggled at we'd be good all of a sudden. It's just today suited us, but I don't want to rely on a bit of hope and luck on performance.”
Thankfully, the team isn't throwing in the towel on the current campaign. As Prodromou pointed out, these new parts are designed to fight for third in the championship right now, even as the learning feeds directly into next year's launch specification. Norris put it simply: “We know what we need to improve on, it just takes time, and hopefully we can have a better day in Brazil.”
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