McLaren Boss Andrea Stella Admits Hamilton and Verstappen Were Untouchable in Canadian GP Despite Team’s Mechanical Woes

McLaren’s troubled Canadian Grand Prix weekend may have been defined by a string of operational failures, but team principal Andrea Stella has revealed that the underlying pace deficit in Sunday’s cold conditions would have cost the team regardless of those setbacks.

Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri failed to score points in the main race — a stark contrast to Norris’s second-place finish in the sprint, where he had a ringside view of the Mercedes battle between George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. Starting from the second row for the grand prix, McLaren appeared well-placed to challenge at the front before a cascade of problems dismantled any such ambitions.

“Here in Canada we had issues in pretty much all areas of racing, from the sporting side to reliability and an accident,” Stella said after the race. “So there’s definitely lots to take away and review.”

The problems began with the decision to start on intermediate tyres, a strategic call that Stella acknowledged backfired. From there, Piastri’s collision with Alex Albon and a gearbox failure that ended Norris’s race compounded the team’s difficulties. The dual retirement also denied McLaren a meaningful evaluation of its latest upgrade package — the second phase of the Miami development — with the team opting on Friday to revert to an older front wing specification after shelving the new component.

However, Stella’s most significant admission extended beyond the mechanical misfortunes. Even during laps where the MCL40 ran in clean air, the car failed to demonstrate the pace that had characterised McLaren’s form earlier in the sprint weekend.

“Independently of the issues with the starting tyres or the other kinds of issues, even when we were in free air, I don’t think we exhibited any competitive pace at the level that we had exhibited up until today,” Stella said. “I can only point this towards the lack of tyre temperature. The drivers kept locking tyres and going long in corners, and just not getting the front tyres to work at all.”

Stella identified the MCL40’s sensitivity to cold-weather tyre conditions as a structural concern, drawing a parallel with comments made by Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto regarding similar challenges for his team in the midfield. The implication is that McLaren’s tyre warm-up issues are not an isolated occurrence but a recurring vulnerability in specific track and weather conditions.

With that context, Stella was direct in his assessment of where McLaren would have finished in an otherwise clean race. “I would say that even in a normal race, in a race in which we had no issues, looking at the pace of the other cars that were contending for the podium, I’m not sure that today we would have had this pace based on the laps that we did when we had the possibility to use the full potential,” he said. In his view, a points finish represented the realistic ceiling, not a podium challenge against Hamilton or Verstappen — despite Verstappen himself experiencing front tyre temperature difficulties during his second stint.

On Piastri’s collision with Albon, Stella was measured but candid. “In terms of his incident, I think the stewards penalised the incident and this is deserved,” he said. “I don’t think there’s much more to add. It was a misjudgement [from Oscar]. Obviously there must have been some pressure as well to try and recover, but ultimately this was penalised by the stewards and was also penalised by the fact that the car was damaged.”

The result leaves McLaren’s constructors’ championship position under scrutiny. Heading into Canada, the team had been considered the benchmark outfit of the 2026 season, with Stella himself noting that the sprint weekend suggested Mercedes had closed the gap significantly. “We seemed to be within a few tenths of a second of Mercedes, still remaining the best car, but probably we have the second-best car now,” he acknowledged — a notable shift in the competitive order.

With the upgrade assessment incomplete and tyre temperature sensitivity unresolved, McLaren faces pressing questions ahead of the next round as rivals continue to close the gap at the front of the field. According to Autosport, the team is aware it has significant work to do in reviewing the weekend’s findings before determining the next steps with its development programme.