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DEFENDING THE CROWN: MCLAREN ENTERS 2026 AS REIGNING CHAMPIONS WITH A TARGET ON THEIR BACK

McLaren is ready: Discover how Andrea Stella is preparing Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to defend their F1 titles in the MCL40.

Defending the Crown: McLaren enters 2026 as reigning champions with a target on their back
Can McLaren fix their 2025 tyre management issues for the MCL40?

McLaren boss Andrea Stella says the team is all-in on making sure both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have everything they need to get the most out of the MCL40.

They're heading into the new season as defending champs in both F1 titles, thanks to Norris finally grabbing his first drivers’ championship. That puts a big target on McLaren’s back.

Even with all that, the team hasn’t been bragging about being top dog during pre-season. Still, Stella feels good about what they’ve seen in testing.

He points out, “We’re encouraged by how reliable the MCL40 is and how much we’ve learned every time we put it on track.”

He adds, “We checked off our testing goals, nailed down the car’s main functions, and proved its reliability. We got in plenty of long runs and worked through setups, aero tweaks, and tyre data, all the way to squeezing the most from the power unit.”

“Day by day, we’ve managed to squeeze out more performance, which is great to see. Now we know exactly what this car can do as we head into this new era of Formula 1.”

The cars handle a lot differently this year, mostly because of big changes to the power units.

As the team figures out how to get every last bit out of the engine, Stella says they’ll keep fine-tuning everything to give Lando and Oscar access to every ounce of pace.

He admits, “The new rules make the driver’s job tougher than ever, and we’re focused on giving Lando and Oscar what they need to get the most out of the car.”

“They’ll have more to juggle with managing the power unit, but we’re working closely with HPP to build better tools and a deeper understanding of engine control and performance. HPP’s done a solid job so far, and we’ll keep pushing together.”

CHASING HISTORY: OSCAR PIASTRI FIGHTS TO END AUSTRALIA’S 46-YEAR WAIT FOR AN F1 TITLE

F1 news: Piastri eyes the crown. Get the report on Alan Jones’s psychological secrets and the battle within the McLaren garage.

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Can Piastri adopt Alan Jones’s ruthless isolation to beat Max Verstappen?

Alan Jones probably wondered if his record as the last Australian Formula 1 world champion was finally under threat when Oscar Piastri took the win at Zandvoort last year. Suddenly, McLaren had a star on their hands. With nine races to go, Piastri pulled 34 points clear of Lando Norris after Norris’s car broke down at the Dutch Grand Prix. Max Verstappen was still hanging back, not looking like much of a threat, at least not yet. Almost no one thought Verstappen would end up ahead of Piastri by the time they got to Abu Dhabi.

Everyone’s been talking about McLaren’s choices between their two drivers and whether Piastri struggles more on low-grip tracks on those weekends where he lost most of his points. But if you look back, Alan Jones had a totally different mindset from the drivers you see on the grid today.

For Piastri to finally close out a title, maybe he needs to steal a page from Jones’s book. When Jones took the championship in 1980, he did things his own way.

Jones once said being a “loner” was his secret in F1. In the Drivers on Drivers book, he got pretty honest about how he kept his distance from everyone else. “I used to keep everyone at arm’s length. I never went out of my way to be mates with any of them,” he said. “I was very much a loner. I don’t know if it was out of fear or giving something away; I don’t know what it was. I’d never go down and lounge around the pool with the others in South Africa, Brazil, or Argentina. I’d just stay in my room. I was self-centred. I was there to do a job, and that was it.”

He even hated staying in the same hotel as the guys he was racing. Sometimes, he’d even change flights if there were too many other drivers on his plane. He just didn’t want to reveal anything, not even a glimpse of his personality. “I wasn’t racing against them as people; I was racing against them as things, as objects,” he said. “You’d spot a black Lotus or a red Ferrari and know who was in it, but it didn’t matter. It was just an object you had to pass.”

Now, Piastri’s situation is pretty different. These days, you can’t really hide from the world if you’re an F1 driver. Even though Piastri’s not the loudest guy on the grid, he’s built a big fanbase with his dry sense of humour; people even compare him to Kimi Raikkonen. Still, the social media era means he can’t be as private as Jones was back in the day. He’s often seen travelling to races with other drivers like George Russell and Alex Albon.

Piastri admitted recently that he’s not sure exactly what he needs to do to become a world champion. Maybe Jones’s old-school advice is the key to helping him make that final step, turning him from a contender into a champion.

LANDO NORRIS SINGLE: F1 CHAMPION CONFIRMS SPLIT FROM MAGUI CORCEIRO IN LEAKED VIDEO

F1 heartbreak: Analyse Lando Norris's split from Magui Corceiro, the "single man" leak, and their on-off relationship history.

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TikTok video captures Lando Norris confirming his breakup in Bahrain

Looks like Formula One world champion Lando Norris and his supermodel girlfriend, Magui Corceiro, have split up. The two started dating in 2023 and had a pretty on-and-off thing. She was right there with him when he won the title in Abu Dhabi – definitely an emotional night for both of them.

But now, it seems like it’s over. According to the Sun, a TikTok video caught Norris telling Carlos Sainz Jr that he’s “a single man". The audio’s not great, but you can hear Sainz asking if he and Magui are okay, and Lando just says, “No,” then adds that he’s single. This happened during pre-season testing in Bahrain while the drivers were getting their photos taken.

Magui, who’s also an actress from Portugal, used to date footballer Joao Felix before Lando. She and Norris broke up in 2024 and got back together, but it looks like they’ve called it quits again. People close to them say there’ve been signs for a while; things changed after Lando’s big championship win. The most obvious clue? Magui wasn’t at Lando’s big thank-you party in Bahrain, even though everyone else was there. Naturally, that got people talking.

Back in December, Magui broke down in tears after Norris won the world championship. She gave an interview to TV Guia, saying how happy they both were and how, in that moment, she forgot about the cameras. It all seemed pretty solid then.

Magui’s got a huge social following – around 800,000 fans on TikTok – and she’s done everything from acting in Portuguese dramas to modelling for brands like Intimissimi and Alo Yoga. She was even on Portugal’s Dancing with the Stars in 2020 and co-founded the eco swimwear brand Missus. She’s graced Vogue Portugal, too.

Norris himself talked about Magui in Vogue, saying they met a few years ago but only got together more recently. He called her “down to earth” and said he can just be himself around her. Apparently, he kept trying to get her into golf, but she hated it.

Neither of them has officially announced the breakup, but at this point, it looks like they’ve gone their separate ways.

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