Here is the honest truth about the current Formula 1 grid: according to Motorsport.com, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has conceded that the team cannot improve its car handling characteristics without fundamental changes that will not be possible until 2027.
Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have felt that the current McLaren is a handful all season. As both drivers have attempted to adapt their driving styles to suit the V6 turbo hybrids with the increased electrical power elements from this year, the added complication of car handling has hamstrung the team's overall progress relative to its frontrunning rivals.
Stella explained: "I don't expect that what's coming to the car will improve this characteristic. I think we need something more fundamental than simply adding some downforce to the car like it's happening in the coming races. Without fundamentally changing some further aspect which we are addressing longer term and at the earliest I would say with the MCL41 for 2027."
After the Singapore Grand Prix, Norris went into detail on the subject, explaining that he needs to force the car into what he wants it to do rather than finding a comfortable balance. Norris said: "It's just on a knife edge on every single corner. You've just got to drive it within an exact percent, and you have to force the car in every single way. You can't let the car do any work. You can't just let the front do the work, or the rear do the work. You have to force the front; you've got to force the rear."
He added that the machine is just too difficult and makes it impossible to put laps together in qualifying. This driving intensity is a feature Stella believes has been a part of the car all season which the drivers have needed to adapt to, and something Piastri's natural smoother and gentler inputs found harder to get to grips with.
Stella explained: "The fact that the car needs quite a lot of effort to deliver lap time, and it requires a level of intensity in the driving input, which is much superior to last year, this is something that took some time for the drivers to understand. Oscar just needed to understand how to force the car to do some things and sort of abandon the fact that driving fast will not necessarily mean driving clean if that makes sense."
