McLaren CEO Zak Brown attempted to reinvigorate his team ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, following a tough start to Formula 1’s new era in 2026. In a speech to the team following a rough Chinese GP weekend, Brown claimed McLaren would be back to winning ways “sooner rather than later”.
After proving to be the dominant force in 2025, McLaren has struggled in Formula 1’s new era as it gets to grips with smaller, lighter and more complex cars in 2026. In pre-season testing, the team set the third fastest time in Bahrain and was one of four teams to surpass 2000km in testing.
However, this didn’t translate to strong performance in the Australian season opener, where Oscar Piastri crashed before the race began and reigning champion Lando Norris finished in fifth.
A week later, things got worse for the papaya team, and both its drivers were forced out of the Chinese Grand Prix due to technical issues before the lights went out. The result is a points tally of just 18 after two grands prix and one sprint – a far cry from McLaren’s start to the 2025 season.
Off the back of its disappointing start, CEO Brown attempted to corral his team as it prepares for the fight back to the front in F1. In a speech to McLaren staff earlier this week, Brown assured the team that it would soon be “winning grand prix races” once again.
“We’ve got to get ready for Japan. We’ve got the two best drivers in the world, we’ve got the best racing team in the world, we’ve got the best culture in a racing team,” Brown said in a video of the speech shared on social media.
“So, let’s just get on with it. Go to Japan, race these cars. We’ll all continue to do what we do, and I’m looking forward to when we win races – I guarantee you when we win our next race, which will be sooner rather than later, we’re not going to be thinking about speed traces or batteries or anything. We’re going to be winning grand prix races.”
McLaren has a history of turning around rough seasons, with it starting on the back foot in 2024 before emerging as the strongest team on the grid by the end of the year. This was followed by a dominant 2025 that saw it clinch both the drivers’ and constructors’ crowns.
In order the muster a similar turnaround in fortunes, the papaya team will have a monumental task on its hands in 2026. In Melbourne, Norris finished the grand prix almost a minute behind the lead Mercedes of George Russell.
In China, the qualifying times of Piastri and Norris were only good enough for fifth and sixth respectively, with the pair both around half a second off the Mercedes benchmark.
The deficit that its drivers are struggling to overcome has been attributed to the aerodynamics of the MCL40, which uses the same Mercedes power unit as the frontrunners. After qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, team boss Andrea Stella explained that it was struggling the develop “enough aerodynamic load”.
“There’s obviously grip that you generate by using the tyres in the right window,” he explained. “But I think we pretty much all understand how to use these tyres in qualifying, so the qualifying is a good reference to see actually what the deficit is from an aerodynamic point of view.”
After Japan, McLaren will have a longer than expected rest period until the next race after grands prix in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were cancelled. This may give it time to develop solutions to some of the shortcomings on its car – but it will have to wait until the Miami Grand Prix in May to test the solutions on track.
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