McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said a straight-line speed deficit on Lando Norris’s car is costing the reigning Formula 1 champion between one and two tenths of a second per lap. Norris reported the problem for the second qualifying week in a row after the Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying session, where McLaren was also losing time to Red Bull and Ferrari. Stella said the team had not yet identified a cause and would consider further changes at Singapore.

The McLaren is already slower on straights than other cars using Mercedes power because the team selected lower gear ratios. Norris faced an additional deficit during the Baku weekend, and the problem has now returned. The shortfall was most apparent in the latter part of the lap, where Oscar Piastri had more top speed than Norris between Turns 13 and 14 and on the back straight approaching Turn 15.

Norris described the effect of the deficit on his qualifying laps: “I'm just down on every single straight, so every time I get a good exit, I'm just slower at the end of the straight. It just hurts seeing this every single time.”

Stella said the team could see the car accelerating less and reaching a lower top speed in sections where power limits performance, with other parameters held constant. He estimated the speed difference at about one to two kilometres per hour, a small amount that can be difficult to detect. A slipstream from a car four seconds ahead can make Norris appear faster than that car, he said.

“We talk about probably between one and two kilometres per hour, they are small quantities, and they are even difficult to see. As soon as Lando, for instance, has a little bit of slipstream from a car four seconds ahead, now you see Lando faster than the other car,” Stella said.

The team principal said the data showed a recurring speed difference that translated into a lap-time loss. He described the measured impact as more than one tenth of a second and possibly as much as two tenths. In his account, the Bahrain deficit was significant in the close qualifying margins, though the source report places the event in Malaysia.

“So, it's a small quantities but that we see statistically and we should more precisely talk about the deficit of straightline speed, which we can quantify in a lap time loss that I would say in excess of one tenth of a second, possibly between one and two tenths of a second,” Stella said.

Stella said the cause was harder to determine than the speed loss itself because current regulations and the many relevant factors complicate diagnosis. If the problem came from power deployment, the team would be able to see it. A mechanical issue beyond what sensors can detect would be harder to isolate, and other possible factors might not involve the power unit.

“A different conversation is about why that is and while we can talk immediately about a lack of power, in reality there can be different reasons,” Stella said. “As you say, it's in a way more difficult to monitor what is happening from a power unit point of view, because if it was deployment we would be able to see it, possibly has to do with some other parameters.”

He also pointed to the relationship between the power unit and the chassis, as well as the possibility that car drag could affect straight-line speed. Stella said he did not want his comments to be understood as assigning blame to Mercedes High Performance Powertrains. He framed the issue as a speed deficit for which McLaren had to take responsibility, since it remained on Norris’s car across two events.

“But at the same time there's the areas of the power unit that depend on what's happening on the chassis side and finally there could be parameters that have to do with the drag of the car,” Stella said. “At no point we are making a point about power unit, we are just making a point about a lack of straightline speed which we want to make a point about - because it's fair to Lando that we take the responsibility for the fact that on his car there's a lap time deficit which at the moment we have not been able to remove in a couple of events.”

Stella said McLaren was reviewing all possible parameters and would investigate further changes, but could do so only at Singapore. The report identified Stella as Italian and credited additional reporting to Filip Cleeren. It also referenced a related report about McLaren’s slower straight-line speed than Mercedes at Baku and one on Max Verstappen taking his first pole of 2026 ahead of Lewis Hamilton at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.

Based on reporting by Autosport.