'A very frustrating Saturday': Stella reveals McLaren's straight-line weakness after pointless Baku race
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella pulled no punches after a painful Azerbaijan Grand Prix, admitting the team paid "some fundamental limitations" of its package around the streets of Baku as it failed to score a point for the third time this season, following similar blanks in China and Canada.
A weekend of frustration for the papaya camp
It should have been a landmark afternoon for Oscar Piastri. The Australian delivered his best showing of a troubled 2026 campaign, running second for much of the race and seemingly on course for a podium. Instead, a mistake in the closing laps saw him run down the Turn 1 escape road, and with the field bunched up by the Safety Car, he tumbled out of the top 10 before he could resume.
Things were little better for Lando Norris, whose weekend was messy from the start. A power unit issue cost him performance on the straights relative to his team mate, and while he was at least destined for consolation points, he became collateral damage in 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 introduced for Baku.
"It's been a very frustrating Saturday," said 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."
Piastri deserved better, says Stella
Despite the disappointing outcome, Stella was full of praise for Piastri, who he believes has crucially got on top of the issues that have hampered him with the 2026 car.
"Oscar did this sort of defensive race very well," Stella explained. "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."
He added: "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."
Fuel injection problem flagged as "high priority"
Norris's slide down the order had multiple causes, Stella admitted, with the power unit problem that hindered him in Qualifying never fully resolved.
"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."
Beyond the technical issue, Stella pointed to Norris's struggles on the medium tyre and some driver errors: "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 it was a rough weekend all round for the World Champion: "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."
Digging into the top speed deficit
The top speed equation is never just about pure horsepower, and Stella outlined a multi-faceted investigation into why McLaren were so exposed on Baku's long straights.
"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," he said. "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."
Upgrades work — and a shift in focus to next year
Amid the disappointment, there was some good news: the Baku upgrade package, which targeted slow-corner performance, delivered encouraging results.
"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 acknowledged that a couple of components may have been lost in Norris's 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 that McLaren's development focus has now 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," he said. "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."