McLaren reveal F1 rivals 'inspiration' behind 2026 car update plans

McLaren has decided it will not follow a path set to be trodden by many of its F1 rivals and throw updates at its 2026 F1 car before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

All 11 F1 teams are scheduled to test their new machinery at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya over five days next week.

For many, it will be a question of how quickly they can develop the car after the test and across the two three-day tests to follow in Bahrain in February before they head to Melbourne for the curtain-raiser on March 6-8.

McLaren, though, is to bide its time, with chief designer Rob Marshall insisting the team wants to "understand" the car first before deciding in which direction it needs to head with potential upgrades.

The process stems from the fact that the cars possess new power units and associated aerodynamics, and will need time to finesse, and appreciating, as well, that it may see parts on other cars that may play a role in its own development.

Speaking to invited media, including RacingNews365, Marshall said: "Between Barcelona and Melbourne, I think what you see is probably pretty much what we'll bring to the first race.

"A lot of our effort will be in understanding this. Also, we need to take into account what the opposition is up to: we need to be inspired by what they may or may not achieve and may or may not show us.

"We really are going to have to be very focused on getting our heads around this car. It's very complicated. It's all new.

"There's a lot of stuff that we need to dial in and tune in, so I think bringing a lot of new stuff to it, early doors, would complicate stuff.

"I think we're better off understanding our platform before we get too keen on redesigning it before it's turned a wheel."

McLaren take Austrian route

Team principal Andrea Stella has outlined that McLaren will only conduct a shakedown on Monday in Barcelona before starting to test the car properly from Tuesday or Wednesday.

One of the reasons for such a decision is that McLaren is pushing the development of its launch car as late as possible.

"The car is in AVL in Austria to run on the dyno," said Stella, referring to the cutting-edge technology company which specialises in the testing of powertrains.

"This is common practice now in F1, such that you can sign off some fundamental systems of the car much more than you can when you run some of the sub-systems, like the gearbox in a gearbox rig, and the dyno we have here at MTC.

"It [AVL] is a facility that we have been using for some time, and that's where the car is at the moment, and then the car will be in Barcelona for the shakedown on track. This will happen directly at the test. We plan to start testing either on day two or day three, so we will not be testing on day one.

"We wanted to give ourselves as much time as possible for development, and you are allowed to test three days over the five that are available in Barcelona."