McLaren started 2026 holding both world titles and ended September a distant third. The new regulations reset the order, and the F1 odds now point firmly towards Mercedes with eight rounds to go. The problems started before the first race and never fully went away.

Titles won, clock running

Lando Norris won the 2025 drivers’ championship by two points from Max Verstappen at the Abu Dhabi finale. McLaren had already sealed a second straight constructors’ title in Singapore, their first back-to-back crowns since 1991.

That title fight came at a cost. Team principal Andrea Stella said in April that the design phase of the MCL40 “was affected” by the team fighting “right up to the final race in 2025”.

A start that cost 80 points

The season opener in Melbourne on 8 March set the tone. Oscar Piastri crashed on his way to the grid and never started his home race. Norris finished fifth, and Stella put the gap to Mercedes at “between half a second and one second” a lap.

A week later in China, neither car started because of separate electrical problems with the power units. McLaren left Shanghai 80 points behind Mercedes after two rounds. Piastri’s first race start of the year came in Japan, the third round.

Same engine, different result

McLaren use the same Mercedes power unit as the works team. That has made the gap harder to explain. Stella said the team was “a little surprised by the difference” and needed to learn how to exploit the engine under the new rules.

Mercedes designed its car and power unit together, with tools and knowledge a customer team does not get. McLaren also reported a lack of downforce and an overweight car early in the season. At the time of writing, Mercedes have won 11 of the 15 races so far, eight of them through Kimi Antonelli.

Piastri lost in the new cars

Piastri led the 2025 championship for much of the year. At the start of October 2026, he is seventh on 120 points, 66 behind Norris, without a win and without a podium since Miami in May.

Stella calls it “purely technical”. The 2026 cars carry much less downforce and slide at the rear, which clashes with Piastri’s smooth style. According to Stella, Piastri is still thinking his way through corners rather than driving on instinct, and that costs him “a couple of tenths”. McLaren have moved extra engineering resources onto his side of the garage, the same approach that turned around Norris’s 2025 season.

Norris keeps McLaren relevant

Norris has kept the champions in the conversation. He won in Hungary on 26 July and at Zandvoort on 23 August by more than 32 seconds. Those are the only races Mercedes and Ferrari have not won this season.

He sits fourth on 186 points, 116 behind Antonelli at the time of writing. McLaren are third in the constructors’ standings on 306, 232 points adrift of Mercedes.

What is left to play for

A third straight constructors’ title is realistically gone. Second place is not, and that is where anyone looking to bet on McLaren should focus. At the time of writing, Ferrari are 72 points ahead, and McLaren hold a 43-point cushion over Red Bull in fourth.

Stella said in June that McLaren wanted “the championship to be decided in Abu Dhabi”. That now looks like wishful thinking. The last few races are about beating Ferrari to second and getting Piastri back on terms before 2027.