Martin Brundle says McLaren ‘need an aero upgrade’ after seeing Lando Norris’ ‘poor’ Melbourne pace

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Martin Brundle has suggested that McLaren are in need of upgrades after a difficult start to 2026 at the Australian Grand Prix.

The Woking outfit came into 2026 in a strong position, given that they were believed to have the fastest engine on the grid in Mercedes. However, McLaren have not built the complete package as the Silver Arrows have.

Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris were fifth and sixth in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, with the latter being almost a second behind polesitter George Russell. The former’s race on Sunday was over before it even started, as Piastri crashed at turn five on his way to the grid.

How do you expect Oscar Piastri to respond to his Australian GP crash at the Chinese GP?

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Norris struggled in the first half of the race, but with a charging Max Verstappen behind him, who had climbed from P20, he picked up his performance in the latter half and came home to finish P5.

The defending champion was over 50 seconds behind the race winner, Russell. The fact that he did a two-stop race is a factor in that large gap, but his MCL40 was lacking the pace of the frontrunners.

Martin Brundle suggests upgrades are needed at McLaren after Australian Grand Prix

McLaren and Williams have been complaining to Mercedes about withholding information on the power unit. The customer teams have struggled to get a proper understanding of the factory engine.

Ralf Schumacher has rubbished these claims, suggesting that McLaren are using it as a distraction for their tricky start to the year. McLaren suffered from tyre graining, which highlighted how they are not at the level of Mercedes in 2026.

Brundle wrote in his column for Sky Sports about the Woking outfit’s lack of pace in the first half of the race. He has suggested that the team ‘need an aero upgrade’ and that they will improve as the season goes on.

He said: “Lando Norris in the sister McLaren had relatively poor pace for half the race but, together with his team, was finding chunks of time with different battery power harvesting and deployment, and was flying along nicely at the end, albeit with fresher tyres than the four ahead of him.

“McLaren will increase competitiveness quickly when they can understand the power unit functions and potential as fully as the Mercedes works team supplier. They need an aero upgrade too.

“Norris stayed ahead of Verstappen, which looked highly unlikely earlier in the race, as Max impressively recovered through the field from 20th on the grid.

“But as two stoppers they were both over 50 seconds off the lead, and neither driver withheld their wrath about the new cars after the race.”

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from parents to celebration

Martin Brundle felt sorry for Oscar Piastri after ‘brutal’ Melbourne crash

McLaren’s efforts were certainly not helped by Piastri’s crash on the sighting lap. It was a devastating scene as he bowed out of his home race before the lights had gone out.

Bernie Collins was perplexed by Zak Brown and his reaction to the crash, as he did not see it as an immediate concern, even though Piastri had suddenly gained 100 kilowatts of power from the battery.

Brundle expressed his sympathy to the Aussie: “At McLaren they were already down to one car even before the start when Oscar Piastri dropped his car into the barriers when he was caught out by a combination of cool tyres, a power spike, and riding a kerb all at the same time.

“That was brutal for him and a great many in the crowd at his home GP. We’ve all done something like that, either going to the grid (I similarly smashed a brand new Tyrrell up in Imola in the mid 80s) or entering the pit lane or suchlike. I felt for him.”