Same engine. Slower in a straight line. No clear explanation. That is, in essence, what McLaren team principal Andrea Stella admitted after the Austrian Grand Prix, and it is not a great look for a team that fancies itself a genuine championship contender.
Three to Four Tenths, and Counting
Stella was unusually candid in breaking down the MCL40’s gap to the dominant Mercedes W17. He estimates the deficit sits at around three to four tenths per lap, split roughly 70% in the corners and 30% on the straights. The corner deficit is at least explicable: McLaren is simply generating less downforce than Mercedes. Painful, but understandable. The straight-line gap is a different matter entirely.
“There’s probably one-and-a-half tenths, one tenth at least, that we lose in the straights, and definitely we need to go and look into why that is the case.” – Andrea Stella
Both teams run Mercedes power. Yet McLaren is visibly haemorrhaging time at full throttle. Stella floated two possible culprits: excess drag on the MCL40, or a discrepancy in how the two teams are exploiting the same powertrain. The uncomfortable truth is that he cannot yet tell which it is. As he put it himself, reverse-engineering a competitor’s straight-line pace is a “typical problem” because you cannot cleanly separate drag losses from power unit differences. That is fair enough in theory. In practice, it means McLaren is heading to Silverstone without a definitive answer.
The Macarena Wing Stays at Home
Adding to McLaren’s Austria story was the postponed debut of their so-called “Macarena” rotating rear wing, an active aero concept first trialled by Ferrari in pre-season. The test was pulled before Friday practice after the team identified potential issues that could have compromised the session. Stella was blunt about its priority level, though: reducing straight-line drag is useful, but it is not the headline fix McLaren needs right now. Downforce is. The Macarena wing is a nice-to-have, not a necessity, and Stella made clear it will not be allowed to divert resources from the more urgent task of building a car that corners like a proper front-runner.
A Familiar Story With a New Wrinkle
McLaren’s corner deficit is a known problem with upgrades reportedly incoming, as Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris will be hoping to see before the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. But the straight-line mystery adds a fresh layer of concern. Mercedes’ engine and aerodynamic advantage was laid bare by Austrian GP telemetry, and McLaren now sits 143 points behind in the constructors’ standings. At some point, “we’re looking into it” needs to become “we’ve fixed it.”
