McLaren F1 rivals warned with stunning 'completely new car' vow

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has vowed to unveil "a completely new car" over the next two grand prix weekends in Miami and Montréal.

The two-time defending constructors' champions have encountered a turbulent start to the defence of their crown, notably in the second race in China, where drivers' title-holder Lando Norris and team-mate hero Oscar Piastri failed to start.

McLaren returned to a degree of form in the last grand prix in Japan, where Piastri and Norris were second and fifth, albeit lacking the pace of front-running Mercedes.

The cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix has afforded McLaren, as with every team, the opportunity to get on top of the new regulations following the sport's switch to 50-50 power between combustion and electrical energy.

The team has also addressed its aerodynamic options after studying its rivals over the first few races, as Stella said would be the case in pre-season, rather than rushing in to make immediate changes.

With the next race in Miami a week away, followed by the Canadian Grand Prix three weeks later, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365, Stella said: "Our intent was always to deliver sort of a completely new car, especially from an aerodynamic upgrades point of view, for the North American races.

"The fact that the calendar changed helped a little, like, I'm sure it helped all the other teams that could work more streamlined towards upgrading the car, rather than being busy with racing.

"I can say that, overall, across Miami and Canada, we will see an entirely new MCL40. Again, I would like to stress that this is what I would expect of most of our competitors."

Stella, though, has dismissed the possibility of "a shift in the pecking order", adding, "It will effectively be just a check of who has been able to add more performance within the same timeframe.

"We also have some performance to recover, if we look at Mercedes and, to some extent, Ferrari as well.

"But we are quite happy with the development that we've been able to manage, like I said before, in the background.

"So hopefully, we should be able to see a slightly more competitive MCL40 in Miami and then in Canada, considering that the last race was already a decent competitive performance in Japan.

"So we definitely look forward to the next races."