McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has defended his team's decision to halt development on its 2025 car as it faces a late-season threat from Max Verstappen.
Verstappen has taken victory at three of the last four races, while McLaren has lost the advantage it held earlier in the campaign.
Championship leader Oscar Piastri now sits just 40 points ahead of Verstappen in the drivers' standings going into the Mexico City Grand Prix, with Lando Norris 26 clear of the four-time F1 champion.
Red Bull's late surge has been steered by an extended development programme, with upgrades still being applied to the RB21 challenger.
However, with new technical regulations coming into play next year, Stella insisted McLaren would have been behind on its new car if it had continued to fit new parts to the MCL39.
"The 2026 project would be heavily compromised,” Stella told the media, including RacingNews365.
"We want to win championships in the future. To win championships in the future, you need to have a competitive car.
“I think we have been very considerate in the timing of switching our full resources to 2026.”
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McLaren point to early-season pace in key development decision
McLaren started the season strongly, winning 12 of the first 15 races to assert a commanding lead over the competition.
Stella argued that McLaren may not have found significant gains with the MCL39 due to how advanced it was at the start of the campaign.
"We also have to make a technical point here,” Stella said. “Our car, from an aerodynamic point of view, was already quite mature.
“To add one point of aerodynamic efficiency, like we have added more than one point when we upgraded our car around Austria, Canada and so on, it [would] take weeks for us because we were at a plateau in our aerodynamic development.
"The 2026 car, every week, we add a lot of downforce. So that's where, with the best information you have available, you have to make a call.
“We also don't have to forget that by being the champions, we are the most restricted by the regulations in terms of the wind tunnel allowance and the CFD allowance.
“It's not like we have an unlimited amount of resources that we can use.
"Because we were so much in the diminishing returns, we needed to be realistic and shift our attention to 2026."
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