McLaren expecting Australian GP ‘performance bump’ after using ‘lesser’ Mercedes engine in testing

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McLaren refused to put themselves at the top of the pecking order after pre-season testing, but might be even more competitive than their showing in Bahrain suggested.

Lando Norris is the first driver since Lewis Hamilton to go into a Formula 1 season as a reigning world champion with McLaren.

He and Oscar Piastri will both have their sight set on the drivers’ championship again this year, and the early signs are promising.

Although Piastri has some concerns about the race starts this season, that appears to be a common theme among some of the drivers.

Jolyon Palmer has been impressed with McLaren so far, but team principal Andrea Stella still thinks the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes might be the teams to beat.

However, McLaren might have been running in Bahrain at a slight disadvantage compared to the factory Mercedes team.

READ MORE: All you need to know about McLaren F1 Team from team principal to engine

McLaren didn’t have the ‘latest spec’ Mercedes engine available for 2026 Bahrain testing

The Race team rated McLaren as the third-best manufacturer after testing, and explaining their reasoning, journalist Ben Anderson said: “Last year’s world champion is not going to be the early 2026 benchmark, but it is at least mixing it with the works teams.

“By the end of the second week in Bahrain, McLaren felt tentatively confident it was competitive against Red Bull and maybe slightly ahead.

McLaren top the mileage charts after Bahrain testing 🏎️

But do any of these totals change your expectations for the season? 🤔

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“Its car was certainly improved and looked a lot more consistent, but a lingering deficit seems to exist on the energy management side as McLaren’s not quite wrapped its head around what Mercedes is able to do.

“That said, a small performance bump is expected in Australia when it gets the latest spec Mercedes engine, having run a slightly lesser version in testing.

“This little bit of performance limitation, easily rectifiable, is what nudges McLaren ahead of Red Bull in this ranking as they otherwise seem neck and neck by the end of the test.”

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

Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli suffered from a power unit failure during Bahrain testing

It will be interesting to see just how much of a difference McLaren having access to the latest specification of Mercedes’ power unit makes to their performance in Australia.

The report doesn’t state whether fellow Mercedes customers Williams and Alpine also didn’t receive the fully-powered engines, or how much of a deficit it could have created.

However, Kimi Antonelli did suffer a power unit failure in Bahrain, and if that was in any way connected to McLaren’s engines not being at 100% during testing, then that would make sense.

Mercedes and their customer teams would have wanted to collect as much data as possible, and in order to do that, the cars needed to be on track.

The Mercedes-powered teams completed 1554 laps between them in Bahrain, nearly 500 more than rivals Ferrari.

That’s to be expected given they had four cars on track compared to Ferrari’s three, and while Mercedes won’t be pleased that they were beaten by a customer team last year, there are benefits to having the likes of McLaren and Williams in their corner.

All eyes will be on qualifying in Melbourne to see how close to the Mercedes power unit’s potential any of the teams got to in Bahrain.