'A very frustrating Saturday' – Stella explains how Baku highlighted McLaren’s straight line weakness

For the third time this year after China and Canada, McLaren failed to score a point in Azerbaijan as they endured a painful afternoon.

The huge frustration was that Oscar Piastri had enjoyed his best showing thus far of a troubled 2026 season, and the Australian looked set to log a podium finish, having run second for much of the race.

However, a mistake in the closing laps saw him head down the Turn 1 escape road, and given that the field had been bunched up by the Safety Car, he tumbled out of the top 10 before he could resume.

Lando Norris meanwhile had a messy weekend, suffering with a PU issue that cost him a little performance on the straights relative to his team mate.

He was at least destined to pick up some consolation points before he became collateral damage after the Franco Colapinto/Pierre Gasly collision. Not only was the World Champion bundled out of the race, he also lost some of the upgraded parts that had been introduced in Baku.

“It's been a very frustrating Saturday,” said Team Principal Andrea Stella. “I think we had issues and some mistakes, but at the same time I think we paid some fundamental limitations of our package in this kind of circuit, because we were not fast enough in the corners.

“But at the same time, mainly we were not fast enough in the straights, and this continuously exposed our drivers to being attacked and having to spend their race pretty much watching the mirrors rather than thinking at how they can progress in the race.”

Stella stressed that Piastri had done a great job in the circumstances, and crucially he appeared to have got on top of the issues that have been hampering him with the 2026 car.

“Oscar did this sort of defensive race very well,” said Stella. “He was very precise. His race reminded me very much of what he did in 2024 to win the race, when he held [Charles] Leclerc behind for a long time.

“But unfortunately, after the pit stop and having gone on the medium tyres, which were performing worse than the soft tyres, he had a lock-up and his race finished there.

“It's a real shame for Oscar, because he deserved to have a go at fighting for the podium, and also because Oscar has been driving very well the entire weekend. And we know that Oscar was in a little bit of learning trajectory to adapt to the 2026 car, and it would have been good to be rewarded.”

Stella admitted that life was made even harder for Norris by the PU issue that had hindered him in Qualifying, and which didn’t go away.

“If we look at Lando's race and the fact that he gradually went backwards, there's a few reasons for that,” he said. “We occasionally saw the same problem during the race, but not as systematic as in Qualifying.

"It was a little bit intermittent, but definitely there's a significant opportunity on the topic of fuel injection that we saw occasionally also on Oscar's car during the race. So this is a topic that we should look at high priority.

“In addition to that, Lando was overtaken by [Max] Verstappen, that was a quicker car. Lando was struggling a bit with the medium tyres – I mentioned Verstappen because he was on medium tyres as well as Lando, but he was faster. But credit to Oscar, Oscar managed to keep Verstappen behind.

“On Lando's side, we were struggling a little bit with power unit deployment, and also Lando was having some inconsistencies in his driving. When he was overtaken by [Lewis] Hamilton, he had a lock-up, and he had a few mistakes that meant that cars behind were within range. And when they are within range, then we struggle to defend, which goes back to the point on top speed.”

Stella conceded that it was a tricky weekend for Norris: “I would say that for Lando, this was one of the most difficult events in general that he has experienced in 2026, something that we need to take away, looking at whatever can be improved.

“But I would say most of the opportunities lie on the team side, and on the car side, because we need to be able to offer our drivers a car that is more raceable and just more consistent in terms of predictability.”

The top speed equation is always a complicated one, and it’s never just about pure horsepower.

“We need to look, I think, as a team, as to why the car wasn't as competitive as it should be in these long straights,” said Stella. “And it is very apparent that it is not a single factor. Certainly, we have always talked quite openly and transparently that we need to improve the aerodynamic drag of the car.

“There are a few factors, which refer to our ratios for instance – we need to look whether we are on the right ratios to compete in circuits in which you have this sort of top speed.

“And at the same time, when we look at the data and we compare with [Mercedes], we see that our power unit was not optimised. I think, while for Qualifying we managed to exploit pretty much the most that was available in the power unit, there's a few items that we were not able to optimise, and we paid the price in the race. So there's some work to do on the power unit side.”

The Baku upgrade package, which targeted slow-corner performance, delivered encouraging results despite the team's disappointing weekend.

“We are happy," said Stella. "The data seems to confirm that there's no issues with the upgrades, so hopefully there will be more benefit at the coming races. This has been a great effort by the entire team."

He admitted some components may have been lost in the crash but was confident replacements would arrive in time.

“Unfortunately, I think a couple of parts will have been lost with the crash, which is another downside of having been involved in these sorts of situations. But luckily, there's some more new parts coming, so we should be okay for the coming races.”

Stella also confirmed McLaren's development focus has switched to next year's car, with only previously approved updates still due to reach the MCL40.

“There's a tail of parts that will land trackside, so we will see still some new parts coming to the MCL40. But at the moment, as we speak, all the efforts are already concentrated onto next year's car, and what we see coming trackside is the result of parts being released a few weeks ago.”