McLaren sit P3 in the 2026 constructors' championship after Miami, 94 points to their name, zero wins through four rounds. For the team that spent last season as the benchmark, that's the headline and the problem in the same breath.
Miami did at least look like McLaren. Lando Norris took P2, Oscar Piastri P3, a clean double podium banked on a sprint weekend where Andrea Stella had openly framed the MCL40 as effectively a new car. The pace was there. The top step wasn't.
That's the through-line of the early season. Norris sits P4 in the drivers' standings on 51 points, Piastri P6 on 43, and YF1's coverage out of the opening quarter has flagged the same thing on both sides of the garage: a working floor, no ceiling. Piastri's title defense also lost a piece of infrastructure when Bahrain and Saudi Arabia came off the calendar in March — Sakhir was a race he won in 2025, and one of his cleanest paths to clawing back into the conversation. Instead, the spring swing vanished, and McLaren cashed podium points rather than victories while teams ahead figured out the new ruleset first.
Ninety-four points in P3 is a foothold, not a platform. What to watch next is whether Miami's double-podium pace carries forward — and whether one of the two papaya cars finally converts a Sunday into a win before Monaco and Silverstone arrive on the schedule.