McLaren rings alarm bells: 'imperative' changes needed in F1

Andrea Stella believes changes have to be made ahead of the first race to ensure all drivers' safety.

Entering the 2026 season, with the new regulations in place, the McLaren team boss has identified three areas that need attention ahead of the upcoming F1 campaign: race start procedures, overtaking, and the risk of collisions caused by lifting and coasting.

Stella began to GPblog among others in Bahrain: "We need to make sure that the race start procedure allows all cars to have the power unit ready to go, because the grid is not the place in which you want to have cars slow in taking off the grid.

"This is a bigger interest than any competitive interest. I think all teams and the FIA should play the game of responsibility when it comes to what is needed in terms of race start procedure.

"I'm thinking about the timings, for instance, the timing of the lights, the timing before the lights, they need to be in the right place to make sure that first of all, that's a safe phase of the way we go racing."

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella - Photo: Race Pictures

The Italian then continued about overtaking with the current generation of cars, and expanded about the possibility of collisions lifting and coasting could also cause.

He said: "I have also identified the overtaking as another point of attention, and the fact that there could be cars that follow another car and the car ahead may want to lift to harvest.

"This may not be an ideal situation when you follow closely and this can lead to a situation like you have seen before a few times, Webber in Valencia, Patrese in Portugal and there are a few more that we definitely don't want to see anymore in Formula 1.

"So I think starts, overtaking and the lift-off is the three situations that we need to look with great level of attention as a Formula 1 community, independently of each of us being a competitor."

Stella worried about overtaking

With DRS no longer providing a speed advantage on straights this year, Stella is worried about the difficulty of making overtakes happen.

"This year when you follow somebody, you have the same drag and the same power. So it becomes quite difficult to overtake. Our drivers have been racing with other drivers during these three days of testing in Bahrain and they have found it extremely difficult to overtake.

"The fact that you have an additional amount of energy when you follow, and you are within the one second, is difficult to exploit because this extra energy may mean that it's just a little bit more deployment at the end of the straight, if anything.

"As an F1 community, we should look at what can be done to make sure that we have feasibility when it comes to overtaking. Otherwise we lose one of the fundamental elements of the nature of racing, which is giving drivers the possibility to overtake."

Norris driving the McLaren car in Bahrain - Photo: Race Pictures

Stella hopes for 'compromise' already by next week

Stella wants to make progress already next week. He continued: "I think a compromise is possible and I think it is the job of the F1 Commission that we have next week to make sure that this is achieved.

"I think it's imperative because it's possible and simple. So we should not complicate what is simple and we should not postpone what is possible immediately. Therefore I think it's something that we should definitely achieve before Australia," the team boss concluded.

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