McLaren plan to bring new upgrades to their F1 car for the final three Grand Prix but Andrea Stella is keeping expectations low.

Since Lando Norris’ back-to-back victories in Hungary and the Netherlands, McLaren have been dropping down the Formula 1 pecking order.

McLaren have had to bin upgrades that haven’t worked on their MCL40. Team Principal Andrea Stella was concerned by the power unit deficit, and now it seems they have fallen behind the likes of Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari on track.

Andrea Stella warns new McLaren upgrades could fail

Naturally, with only six Grand Prix remaining in 2026, full focus will soon switch to 2027. But McLaren are still in the midst of a Constructors’ Championship battle and new upgrades are on the way.

Andrea Stella has confirmed that McLaren will bring new upgrades for the final triple header of the year, which includes concepts for their 2027 design. However, he warned it could backfire.

“We do plan to deliver some upgrades; we hope that they will be able to fill in this gap we have to the best cars and put McLaren in condition to fight for podiums on merit, and then victory,” Stella said, as quoted by RacingNews365.

“This, I think, will probably be in the last three races because the upgrades have to be delivered in phases – and it is important for us to deliver upgrades because we are in a close fight for a championship position.

“We also want to prove some of the fundamental concepts that we’ll carry into next year’s car, because at this level of maturity of the cars, you are starting to push the aerodynamic development, and you may start to see some things work.

“Others may not work because the aerodynamics are starting to get complicated enough after basically two years of development, if we consider that development started on January 2nd, 2025, and now we are well into 2026.

“So after two years, it is complex; it may go right. It may go wrong, so we want to test some of the fundamentals we carry into next year.”

McLaren at risk of dropping to P4 in the Constructors’ Championship

After the Singapore Grand Prix, McLaren remain third in the Constructors’ Championship standings with 339 points, but Red Bull are looming.

Max Verstappen has won successive Grand Prix, sandwiched between victory in the Singapore Sprint. As a result, Red Bull are now just seven points behind McLaren and are topping the timing sheets.

If Verstappen’s dominance continues, and McLaren continue to throw away valuable points like they did with Lando Norris crashing into Oscar Piastri, then they are at risk of dropping down the table.

Dropping into P4 will impact the financial reward to McLaren this season and put them on the back foot heading into 2027.