McLaren plans to carry over core strengths of its MCL39 into 2026, aiming to preserve tyre management despite new regulations.
McLaren F1 does not intend to start entirely from scratch next year, despite the major regulation changes.
Team Principal Andrea Stella has revealed that his engineers are exploring ways to maintain control over tyre degradation—an area where the MCL39 currently performs well—despite a completely revised rulebook.
“I believe there are fundamental elements that can be retained,” said Stella.
“There are other aspects that are more about continuous evolution and improvement of a platform, such as the platform of our car under the current regulations, which we now understand very well.”
“But I think some fundamental elements in terms of understanding can be carried over into next year’s car. For other aspects, we will need to figure out how to transfer them from this car to the next.”
The Italian elaborated on the factors the team must consider to succeed in this objective: “For example, if we consider aerodynamic aspects that influence tyre behaviour, it’s clear that next year’s aerodynamic downforce levels will be completely different.”
“So we will need to think about how to transfer the knowledge we’ve gathered under this set of regulations to a different one, with entirely new mappings. There’s still work to be done, and I believe that with the new regulations, we’ll undergo another process of continuous improvement as we’ve seen with the current ones.”