McLaren brings forward-looking front wing upgrade to Brazil GP to claw back third place

McLaren will debut a package of aerodynamic upgrades at the São Paulo Grand Prix, headlined by a front wing concept the team expects to carry forward into its 2027 challenger, as it attempts to reverse a slide that has left it fourth-quickest over the past four qualifying sessions.

The British outfit surged to the front of the midfield battle after a substantial MCL40 overhaul in Hungary, where Lando Norris won back-to-back races at the Hungaroring and Zandvoort. Subsequent updates in Baku and Austin failed to sustain that momentum, however, leaving McLaren an average of 0.511 seconds off pole and 0.236s adrift of the third-fastest car across those sessions.

“We’ve got some updates coming to the car across the front wing, rear wing and some floor components as part of our normal development cycle,” said Peter Prodromou, McLaren’s chief technical officer for aerodynamics. “The aim is to make up ground, improve our performance over the remaining races and build momentum into next year.”

Prodromou confirmed the dual purpose of the new specification, stating that the team expects to carry over the front wing concept into the launch configuration of next year’s car — an unusually direct signal that 2026-season development is now feeding directly into 2027 planning.

“Sao Paulo has been a good circuit for us in the past and is a fairly representative track, so we’re hopeful these upgrades can help us take another step towards the front,” he added. “The season isn’t over yet: these upgrades are designed to improve the car now and help us in our fight for third in the championship.”

That fight is pressing. McLaren trails third-placed Red Bull by 17 points in the constructors’ standings, but has scored just 59 points to Red Bull’s 152 across the last five rounds — a stark illustration of how far the competitive picture has shifted since the summer.

Norris offered a cautiously optimistic reading of the Mexican Grand Prix, where he finished fifth just 12 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen, but was candid about the car’s underlying limitations. “If we look at Baku and stuff, I think we’re still going to be struggling for pace,” he said. “We know what we need to improve on, it just takes time, and hopefully we can have a better day in Brazil.”

The reigning world champion acknowledged that Mexico’s result was circuit-specific rather than a sign of a broader recovery, warning against reading too much into a single strong weekend. Whether the Interlagos package can deliver the consistent step forward McLaren needs — both now and as a foundation for 2027 — will become clearer across practice and qualifying this weekend.