2026 Canadian Grand Prix – McLaren Sprint Qualifying Report

Find out what happened during FP1 and Sprint Qualifying in Canada, and get the thoughts of McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, as well as Technical Director - Applied Engineering, Neil Houldey.

Friday at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal, ended with a positive result after an unexpectedly difficult day. Lando lines up for tomorrow’s Sprint in P3, with Oscar alongside in P4. Having spent most of the only Free Practice session struggling for grip and tyre temperature, both drivers saved their best laps for last.

The team had arrived in Canada with a second instalment to the upgrade package introduced in Miami, adding a new front wing and various aerodynamic tweaks around the car to deliver more load. Lando ran through practice with the new front wing fitted, while Oscar started with the old and moved onto the new partway through his first run.

The session was interrupted three times for Red Flags, but the start-stop nature of the session was less of a problem than the low-grip conditions, with both drivers finding it difficult to deliver consistent laps. Nevertheless, both managed to complete a full programme of 32 laps and deliver valuable data.

Lando was perhaps less comfortable than Oscar in the Practice session, and for Sprint Qualifying, both elected to swap back to the known quantity of the previous specification front wing. Both drivers moved comfortably through the Medium tyre sessions. They settled on different strategies for SQ3, with Lando electing to do a warm-up lap, and Oscar attempting to set a time on his first lap. He aborted that early and converted to a warm-up, with both drivers planning two push laps separated by a single cool-down lap. Oscar lay fifth and Lando seventh after their first attempts, but the track came to them for the final push laps, and they delivered more competitive times.

The team’s attention now turns to tomorrow’s Sprint, with a great deal of analysis to do tonight to maximise our performance in the short-form race.

In F1 Academy Qualifying, Ella Stevens crossed the line in P14, with Ella Lloyd in P16.

“Given how the morning went, a P3 is a very good result and a bit of a turnaround. We were worried about being off the pace, and I didn’t have much confidence in the car, but we made some changes that delivered a clear step forward. We returned to the previous spec front wing going into Sprint Quali, which gave me some more confidence. The lap was decent, I could have found a bit more, but the gap to the front wasn’t that big, which is encouraging.

“I’m proud of the team for reacting quickly and doing such a good job under tricky conditions. The upgrade package is working well, some bits, mainly the front wing, still need more time, and we may reintroduce them further down the line. That said, the rest of the car worked well, and for the first time this weekend, I felt genuinely confident in Q3 on the Soft tyre. It’s a good step forward, and we’ll keep refining from here.”

“P4. I am relatively happy with that. We maximised what we could, especially after a messier FP1 with the delays and the Red Flags, which meant we didn’t get as much learning time as we had hoped. The Mercedes look strong with their new package, so we still have work to do to find more performance and close that gap.

“Thanks to the team for their work to get the new parts ready for Canada. It was a big package to deliver, and we have some more work to do on the front wing – we ended up running with the older one in Sprint Qualifying as we felt more comfortable with it.

“Let’s see what we can do in the Sprint tomorrow and see what we can optimise ahead of Grand Prix Qualifying.”

Neil Houldey

Technical Director - Applied Engineering

"We're pleased to have come out of Sprint Qualifying with a third and fourth place. We've made great progress over the last few races, the upgrade in Miami had a big effect on closing the gap to the front, and the new parts we've brought here seem to have helped close it a little bit more again.

“With that said, we reverted to the old specification front wing after FP1 this morning. We found during the session that 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.

“There's still an opportunity to extract more performance out of the car for the main Qualifying session. Going forward, our focus remains on adding performance to the car, looking ahead to the next upgrades, and making sure we're in a position where we are fighting for first and second, not just third and fourth. The goal is to close that gap completely."