Is McLaren now a legitimate F1 2026 contender?

July 28, 2026 · Yahoo Sports

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With Mercedes' uncontested early season dominance now in the rearview mirror, Formula 1 2026 has finally turned into the development war it was always promising to be.

The ebb and flow of teams bringing significant aerodynamic upgrades keeps changing the pecking order week to week.

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Following rafts of improvements from Red Bull and especially Ferrari in recent weeks, it was McLaren's turn to add another layer onto its Miami-Montreal package by introducing a new floor, a big ticket item that would be particularly effective on a high-downforce circuit like the Hungaroring.

It enabled Lando Norris to take McLaren's first grand prix win of the campaign from pole, although of course the reigning world champion’s win was anything but straightforward. But once in free air, Norris was clearly in a class of his own and by all accounts the team should have snared a 1-2 with Oscar Piastri too, regardless of the order.

Has McLaren's Hungary triumph therefore provided enough evidence to suggest the defending champion is back?

While Norris delivered an excellent second qualifying to improve on a scrappy first, in which he battled a huge slide out of the final corner, the Briton only took pole over Lewis Hamilton by 0.012s. The Ferrari man being one of several drivers struggling to find time on the final lap.

Lando Norris, McLaren

Between a grid penalty for impeding Piastri and further mistakes across the board from Ferrari on Sunday, it is clear the Scuderia underperformed and didn't execute to its full potential. With how important track position is in Budapest, a Hamilton or Leclerc pole could have painted a very different picture.

"The pure pace of the team was probably better this weekend than Spa or Silverstone,' said Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur. "We were in front in FP1, we were in FP2, we were able to fight for the pole with Lewis. We lost the pole for 0.01 seconds and I think today the execution was very poor."

Mercedes also failed to turn a clean weekend, which started with picking a wrong set-up direction on Friday which it had to claw its way back from. Having said that, in the hands of championship leader Kimi Antonelli the W17 did look fast in long runs on Friday.

"The whole weekend wasn't great, missing FP1 certainly was not perfect, we got the set-ups not 100% right and it was always a catch-up game," Toto Wolff said on Sunday night.

Mercedes wasn't feeling particularly confident for the race, then, but Antonelli's pace and George Russell's impressive recovery through the field after a botched start showed the Silver Arrow had plenty of pace too, with Antonelli losing out under the virtual safety car for Piastri's stricken McLaren.

"If you would have told me before the race that we can have a podium with Kimi, I would have said I'll take it immediately,” added Wolff. ”But now we are looking back, the prevailing feeling is that we should have done better."

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing

McLaren counterpart Andrea Stella was only too aware that as much as his team deserved to celebrate the rewards of its hard work to get the floor upgrade out before the summer break, it may also have overachieved in Hungary as its rivals fumbled.

"I think Ferrari still has the best chassis in terms of grip in the corners. This is very apparent in braking," Stella said on Saturday after qualifying. “Pole position is a little bit of an overachievement thanks to execution and maximising the potential that was available."

After Sunday's race, Stella added another layer of detail.

"At the first glance, it looks like McLaren had a pace advantage," he said. "I think especially when Lando took the lead, this became more apparent. But at the same time, here it depends very much on which tyre you are on, how old are the tyres.

“So I don't want to draw conclusions too quickly, but it looks like, if anything, in the race we had a little more advantage than we had in qualifying. Because effectively in qualifying, if anything, it was 12 milliseconds and the Ferraris didn't do the second attempt in Q3. In fairness, not even Oscar [did]."

So while there is no need to overreact to McLaren's first win of 2026, the papaya squad at least has the tools to at least be in the mix with Mercedes and Ferrari. The good news for neutrals is that rather than one team running away with things, the gaps are small enough for elements like track specific strengths, weather conditions and trackside execution to all play a significant role swinging the pendulum either way.

But alongside the reliability issues that have been plaguing McLaren and Mercedes, the biggest unknown factor is exactly how much more performance teams are able to bring to the track.

There will likely be significant upgrade packages across the board at Zandvoort and Monza after the summer break, upgrades which are already well in the pipeline now while teams switch their focus to 2027. So rather than taking Hungary as a snapshot of the pecking order, the 2026 season will continue to be decided by the raging development war back at the factories.

"Honestly, I still believe that if we want to be in a position to fight for victories consistently in the future, we need to keep our focus on delivering more upgrades," Stella acknowledged.

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