McLaren address questioned car development approach after Max Verstappen title fight

McLaren chief designer Rob Marshall has addressed the development approach of last year’s Formula 1 car, insisting it did not suffer from the team switching focus to 2026.

The Woking-based outfit dominated the first half of the F1 season last year, on its way to a second consecutive constructors’ title and Lando Norris becoming world champion.

Despite both championships being secured, Max Verstappen and Red Bull made staggering strides on McLaren in the latter stages.

Due to its dominance, McLaren switched complete focus to its 2026 car before Red Bull, while the latter introduced major upgrades to the RB22 late in the season.

This saw McLaren’s huge performance advantage completely disappear, to the extent that Verstappen reduced his title deficit from 104 points to just two in the closing rounds.

As a result, questions arose over whether the British squad had aborted development of its 2025 car too early, in favour of preparing for the new power unit regulations.

Marshall has insisted that this was not the case and that McLaren is confident it chose the right approach for the final year of the ground-effect era.

Asked how its 2025 title pursuit impacted development of the MCL40, Marshall told select media including RacingNews365: "In terms of the development of last year’s car through the season, obviously it gets to a stage where you need to tail off the design and think about the new car.

"And that probably started earlier than it would have in a normal year because of the regulation changes. But equally, we had started this car so much earlier than we normally would that a lot of the initial prep and groundwork was already done.

"So yeah, we lifted off on last year’s car to focus on this. But I wouldn’t say it suffered. I think clearly there was an interesting race at the end of last year.

"You could argue that others maybe kept pressing on with its ’25 car longer than we did, but I think we probably did the right thing in the end."