McLaren explain reason behind lack of crucial F1 upgrades in title fight

McLaren's "plateauing" with available upgrades to its F1 car is the reason why the team is not bringing any fresh parts despite the title fight intensifying, according to Andrea Stella.

Although it has already wrapped up the constructors' championship, McLaren is now locked in a fight with Max Verstappen to ensure either Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri claim its first drivers' title since 2008.

Whilst fresh upgrades have propelled Verstappen back into the fight, with a new floor and front-wing being brought in recent races, McLaren has not brought any new parts in recent races.

This, coupled with a wobble for Piastri, has seen him lose the championship lead to Norris for the first time since Saudi Arabia, with Verstappen taking 69 points out of Piastri in the last five races.

Detailing McLaren's decision not to bring any more upgrades, team principal Stella has explained how the team reached a point where it questioned if it could develop the MCL39 any further to bring tangible upgrades.

"You work in a very efficient way in a Formula 1 team, and actually blend your manpower with the methodologies, like the CFD and the wind-tunnel, so that none of them is actually a single limitation," Stella told media, including RacingNews365.

"You blend your working ways so that they become a single limitation, and that's exactly what was the case for us.

"It is not like if I spend three weeks more on [developing] the 2025 car, I am going to add a tenth of lap-time, we just plateaued. 

"We were lucky to produce the upgrades that we took to the middle of the season. It was a huge undertaking, and we were like: 'Should we finish?', because we were struggling to improve on what was already a pretty mature project.

"We have seen how many cars actually attempted to develop and sometimes went in the opposite direction. This is because of the very sophisticated aerodynamics.

"I think it is much easier to develop when you have some specific problems, like for instance, Red Bull has talked at times of struggling with balance with the front-wing when they were using big rear-wings.

"Then it is easier to find lap-time, because you are effectively fixing something rather than trying to improve something that already works well."