McLaren removed its new front wing (pictured above) for Formula 1’s sprint qualifying session at the Canadian Grand Prix because it was not producing the performance expected.
The world champion team followed up its major Miami upgrade package with a second suite of developments in Montreal, to complete its first big set of updates for its 2026 car.
This included a new front wing, which Lando Norris ran throughout Friday’s only practice session while Oscar Piastri started with the old front wing and moved on to the new specification during the session.
McLaren said Norris was the least comfortable of the two in practice but both drivers changed to the older front wing for sprint qualifying as Piastri said “we felt more comfortable with it”.
After Norris qualified third and Piastri fourth for the sprint race, both are set to continue with the older wing for the remainder of the weekend.
Technical director for engineering Neil Houldey said “the front wing wasn’t quite delivering what we expected and we ultimately took the call to run the previous specification front wing, which gave the drivers more confidence and allowed them to unlock more performance”.
McLaren feels the upgrade package as a whole, though, has helped – but Mercedes had a good advantage in sprint qualifying after introducing a raft of developments to its car for the first time in 2026.
Norris suggested the front wing would be back on the car after the Monaco Grand Prix, for the more conventional Barcelona circuit in Spain later in June.
“Some things were maybe a bit more questionable and we probably need just more time to review things and look back,” Norris said of the upgrade, and referring to the front wing.
“It’s such a weird track, it’s so low grip, you’re kind of bouncing off kerbs and stuff, so you’re not getting a true representation of everything and it’s hard to back it up with what we have in the windtunnel and things like that.
“We need a bit more time with some bits and we will probably reintroduce some of them next weekend – or in Barcelona.
“But at the same time the rest of the car I think was clearly working well and I felt confident in Q3, especially on the soft, which is probably the first time this weekend that I felt that confidence!
“So a good step forward and we’ll see what we can improve.”