“We Had an Opportunity to Win”: McLaren Explains the Call That Cost Them the 2026 Miami Grand Prix

McLaren Upgraded, and It Showed

The introduction of a suite of upgrades onto the MCL40 for the first race back after the sport‘s enforced April break brought the reigning two-time constructors’ champions right back into play at the front. Norris, who had not finished higher than fourth in the three Grands Prix and one Sprint before the extended break, won the Sprint on Saturday by 3.8 seconds from Oscar Piastri.

A McLaren one-two in a Sprint format is encouraging. Losing the main event on a strategy call is rather less so. Stella wasn’t interested in thinking of this as a disappointment, though. Mercedes entered the Miami round as the leader of the constructors’ championship, holding 135 points and leading Ferrari by 45, with McLaren a further 45 back.

“We don’t have to forget where we came from. We came from a relatively difficult start of the season. We reacted,” Stella said. “We always said internally, irrespective of where we are at the start, we know what we are capable of. So I think we have demonstrated [that].

“Big, big thank you to the team for the hard work that led us to delivering all the upgrades in various areas of the car that made us competitive. I think Mercedes still have a little bit of an advantage on us but it’s good to be there and the championship is very long.”

McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull have all looked more capable of challenging early championship leaders Mercedes on pure pace than any of the opening three rounds in March. The MCL40 upgrades passed the sprint test on Saturday. The Grand Prix was close enough that it was actually a strategy that called it. The cars are arguably capable.

More upgrades are coming and the gap to Mercedes is shrinking. A win that slipped away in a Miami pitlane is painful, but this was not a weekend that went wrong, it was a weekend that nearly went perfectly. That’s a different kind of problem to have.