(Motorsport-Total.com) – McLaren calls the large number of vehicle upgrades at Ferrari in the first half of the 2026 season an “inspiration,” while the team itself tries to continue bringing continuous updates.
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The start of a new regulation era has triggered a massive development war in the first half of the 2026 season. Especially Ferrari and Red Bull have impressed the competition with the number of upgrades they were able to bring from the factory to the track at a rapid pace.
This development race is expected to continue after the summer break before tapering off as teams shift their focus to 2027. Both Ferrari and McLaren have brought enough improvements to their respective cars to snatch the first race wins from the initially dominant Mercedes team.
McLaren has at least one more ace up its sleeve for the Dutch Grand Prix in August, while further upgrades are also expected from Mercedes, after the team has so far brought fewer innovations to the track than the competition.
But just like Mercedes, McLaren has singled out Ferrari as the team that has impressed the most so far with the quantity and quality of its vehicle upgrades – so much so that it has prompted the Woking team to question its own processes in order to reach the design and manufacturing pace from Maranello.
“I think we’ve done a pretty good job bringing many upgrades that have improved the car’s performance,” says Neil Houldey, Technical Director for Engineering at McLaren. “But when you look around at our competitors, there are teams like Ferrari who have done a fantastic job this year to simply keep pushing this development forward.”
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When asked if he feels that Ferrari has shifted its development budget forward under the budget cap – and if this might give McLaren the chance to cause a bigger stir after the summer – Houldey replies: “Well, I think we’ve also brought forward what we have available to us.”
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“I would say, purely in terms of volume, it looks like Ferrari has achieved an enormous amount. That’s something we need to look at and understand how they managed to do that. Because you consider that both from the perspective of aerodynamic development and from the perspective of manufacturing.”
“How they actually implemented these things so quickly is an inspiration for us to say: ‘Come on, we were good in 2024. We were good in 2025. But how do we do it even better in 2026 and looking ahead to 2027?'”
“If you don’t make progress in Formula 1 – as in everything else – and find ways to do things faster and more effectively, you effectively fall behind,” he says. “So I think it was a good lesson for us to see what others are capable of and how we do it.”
McLaren wants to keep working on 2026
According to Houldey, McLaren wants to continue developing the 2026 car late into the season instead of shifting focus early to 2027. He is convinced that the lessons the team is learning now also apply to the 2027 project – even if McLaren plans to change key elements of the vehicle design such as the wheelbase and suspension geometry.
“We expect to bring some big parts at the next races, and we also expect to do so quite late in the season,” he reveals. “We are definitely not stopping development for 2026 because we know that all the knowledge we take from 2026 to 2027 is transferable.”
“Even if our car might be a bit longer, even if the suspension conceptually changes: everything we learn this year is absolutely relevant for next year. So we are very keen to keep developing the car as long as possible.”
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