Verstappen finds ally in McLaren boss: 'Everyone would lose without changes'

After the Miami Grand Prix, "in principle," an agreement with the engine manufacturers to change the power split in the engines from 50/50 to 60/40 was announced by the FIA.

However, that now appears to be on shaky ground for two reasons. First, the cost of adjustment to the power units. For example, Audi finds it very difficult to justify spending millions again after doing so ahead of 2026. The second is the ADUO system, which could give teams that are lagging behind at the moment an advantage.

Verstappen, who is also in favor of the change, said to GPblog, among others, after qualifying: "If it stays like this, it's going to be a long year next year, which I don't want. I can tell you if it stays like this, then let's see. It's just mentally not doable for me to stay like this. It's really not.”

The Dutchman added: "There's a lot of other fun things out there. Let's stay on the positive side. We're still, I think, looking towards making those changes and of course some people that at the moment maybe have a bit of an advantage will try to be difficult about it. But if the FIA is strong and also from the FOM side, they just need to do it."

The McLaren team boss has already supported hardware changes this year. Stella stood by his view in Montreal as well. He said: "In my view, while we are getting used to this Formula 1, and while we have made some steps forward with adjustments of the current hardware, and possibly we can make further adjustments for 2026, in my view, a change of the hardware is needed. A change of the hardware, which we can summarize in this 60/40, in reality, it's something slightly more complicated than that."

According to Stella, the competition will suffer if they do not preserve the value of F1. "The proposal that was put forward by the FIA, which looks at increasing the ICE power through the fuel flow, looks at redistributing the electrical power in harvesting, in deployment, the battery capacity, they were all part of a very important package that will make Formula 1 better. This is a general interest that should prevail over the particular interests. Because if we don't have a good sport, if we don't preserve the value of the business, the value of Formula 1, everyone will have a loss.

The McLaren team boss also added that they are just getting through 2026, working with what they have right now. "I think we are just getting used it because we just don't want to repeat ourselves. but if I listen to the debrief of the drivers, you know, once again the driver said, I did such a good job in going on power so early out of Turn 7 actually, and so early out of Turn 9, I'm gaining in exit a little bit, and then the other car gains, because he was slower going on power, and now he has more deployment. So I think this is something that we want to cure, and we have a possibility to do it in 2027. "