2026 British Grand Prix – McLaren Sprint & GP Qualifying Report

Silverstone Circuit, Saturday, 4 July

Find out what happened during the Sprint and GP Qualifying in Great Britain, and get the thoughts of McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Drivers Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and Team Principal, Andrea Stella.

Today’s 2026 British Grand Prix action saw no surprises on the Qualifying front, with McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 team positioned exactly where they were expected to be, battling primarily with Red Bull for the position of the third-fastest team.

While the trickier track conditions today allowed the leading teams to truly shine, McLaren Mastercard’s competitive race pace and strong energy management in close battles, seen during the earlier Sprint, provides a solid foundation for the team to challenge for a better result tomorrow.

The fourth Sprint of the 2026 season took place under familiar Silverstone conditions, featuring a gusty western wind, blue skies, and scattered white clouds overhead. Building on performances from Friday’s Sprint Qualifying, Lando Norris utilised a set of new Medium tyres to climb three places and secure a podium finish at his home circuit. Oscar Piastri, also running a new set of Mediums throughout the session, maintained his position to finish P7 at the end of the 17-lap race.

In addition to securing a strong haul of points in the additional competitive session, the team gathered crucial data on energy management under race conditions. This insight will be invaluable for the rest of the weekend, especially since Silverstone is a harvest-poor circuit, and this unique characteristic triggered plenty of action and a constantly shifting running order throughout the Sprint.

Following the Sprint debrief in the short gap between sessions, the team soon turned their attention to the afternoon's Grand Prix Qualifying.

Both drivers successfully completed their opening Qualifying laps before a Yellow Flag was waved at Turn 7 when George Russell went off-track into the gravel. Another Yellow Flag appeared towards the end of the opening block after Franco Colapinto also ran off-track. However, because no Red Flags were thrown for either incident, the session was never halted, allowing Lando and Oscar to safely complete their runs and secure their places in Q2.

A slight delay to the start of Q2 occurred due to track cleaning, but once the session got underway, both Lando and Oscar opted for used Soft tyres to set their initial lap times. With less than five minutes remaining, the pair switched to new Softs for their final runs before securing positions in the top 10 and locking in their places for Q3 as the Chequered Flag fell.

The final Qualifying period of the day saw challenging conditions continue, with drivers struggling for stability due to the wind. Oscar set the early benchmark as the first car to post a lap, before Lando slotted in just behind him. After fitting a final set of Soft tyres, both McLaren Mastercard drivers improved their times on their second trip out the garage. Lando secured P6 with a 1m28.877, mirroring his Friday form, while Oscar’s improved lap of 1m29.032 placed him on the fourth row in P8 for tomorrow’s 2026 British Grand Prix.

With track conditions favouring the strongest packages, Ferrari and Mercedes were able to open a significant gap to the rest of the field and secure the front positions on the grid. Despite that, there are encouraging areas heading into Sunday's 2026 British Grand Prix. The team’s race pace demonstrated during this morning's Silverstone Sprint gives the team confidence that the MCL40 will be more competitive over a full race distance. The focus will now be on maximising opportunities in the Grand Prix.

Across the McLaren Driver Development Programme, Matteo De Palo started the FIA Formula 3 Reverse Grid Sprint from P8. After several strong battles, the Italian narrowly missed out on his first papaya podium, crossing the line in P4 after locking up at the penultimate corner on the final lap.

In the F1 Academy Reverse Grid race, Ella Lloyd started from P3 and finished P3 in the McLaren F1 Academy entry, while McLaren Oxagon's Ella Stevens finished P14 from P11.

Near Rome, Italy, Christian Costoya qualified P7 for the Euro 4 Championship and finished Race 1 in P16. Elsewhere in Italy, at the Imola round of the European Le Mans Series, Grégoire Saucy qualified P3 in the LMP2 class, with Richard Verschoor qualifying P1 in LMP2 PRO/AM ahead of tomorrow's race.

“It was a challenging Qualifying and, at the moment, we're simply too far off the pace. We seem to be losing a significant amount of time both on the straights and through the corners, which highlights the limitations of our overall package. We'll review all the data from every session overnight to build the clearest possible picture, but we know we need to improve and everyone at the factory and track is working incredibly hard to close the gap through our development programme.

“Looking ahead to tomorrow's race, we have to be realistic. There may be opportunities to challenge the cars immediately ahead, but compared to the front-runners, our overall pace means it's unlikely we'll be fighting at the sharp end. That said, I was really pleased with my own performance in the Sprint to finish P3. It felt like a fantastic result given the limitations we have, and we'll be looking to maximise everything that's available to us and extract the most from the car throughout tomorrow's race.”

“A tougher day today. In the Sprint, we made a good start, but once the battles settled, we just didn't have the pace. This afternoon, we made some good set up changes, but we didn't quite see the benefits of them on track. The car was nervous, especially in the high-speed corners, so we just were lacking grip and pace.

“Even with these challenges, we know that when we get right, we can be right up there in the fight, like yesterday, when we were just a tenth off third place. We have clear areas we need to work on to make the car more adaptable, and the team are working very hard to do that. Mercedes is clearly a step ahead right now, but we believe teams like Ferrari are not completely unbeatable, so we will keep chipping away, manage our tyres and see what we can achieve.”

Andrea Stella

Team Principal

“Today’s Qualifying saw difficult track conditions for the drivers, with gusty wind making the conditions tricky, especially in the corners. That tended to favour the best cars like Ferrari and Mercedes, who opened the gap in Qualifying and finished at the front in today’s session.

“Our Q1 and Q2 were tense as we adapted to the conditions, and while we improved in Q3, the gap to the front is still large. Ultimately, looking at performance right now, we’re operating as the third or fourth team alongside Red Bull, and that’s broadly where we belong at the moment with the MCL40’s current package.

“That said, what we have seen in this morning’s Silverstone Sprint with Lando’s race pace gives us a bit more confidence that we can be more competitive over a full race tomorrow. Overall, we know there’s a lot of work ahead to fill the gap in order to fight the leading teams and we must keep improving the car so we can perform in all conditions.”