McLaren last year won both the constructors’ and drivers’ championships for the first time since 1998. The ultra-competitive MCL39 delivered Lando Norris his maiden title and extended the papayas’ world-champion status. Still, CEO Zak Brown accepts that the honour will count for little in 2026. With sweeping regulation changes, McLaren will effectively be starting from scratch, he stresses in an open letter to the fans.
“We’re only two weeks into the new year, but we’ve been preparing for 2026 for some time,” Zak Brown wrote this week on McLaren’s website. “There’s a lot to look forward to.” Both the chassis and engine regulations are being overhauled this year. The cars will be smaller and lighter and will also feature a number of new measures designed to encourage overtaking. “The title ‘reigning champion’ means little when we are all faced with a revision of the rules,” Brown said.
New pecking order
“This new era of regulations in Formula 1 will bring fresh challenges as the competitive landscape shifts,” he added. “But our aim remains to build on the foundations that delivered our success in 2024 and 2025, and to maintain the high standards required to fight at the front.”
For now, the new hierarchy is still anyone’s guess. “No one can predict at this stage what the grid will look like for the opening races,” the McLaren CEO confirmed. “That said, Andrea (Stella, ed.) and his team have been working hard for some time to give us the best possible chance of a strong start.”
