‘Are you serious?’: Absence at Chinese GP sparks theory about McLaren’s 2026 F1 season

McLaren chief Zak Brown not attending the Chinese Grand Prix has caused a stir after the team endured a disastrous result in Shanghai on Sunday.

Neither Oscar Piastri nor Lando Norris managed to start the race with both cars experiencing separate electrical issues that left them in the garage.

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While the chaos unfolded in the half an hour leading up to race time, Brown was on the other side of the world due to his conflicting IndyCar commitments, attending the race in Arlington.

Though Brown doesn’t attend every F1 race on the calendar, the timing of his absence caught the attention of MotorRacing 360 host Paul Murray.

“This the guy who when they’re winning, he’s all the way through the coverage,” Murray said. “There’s high fives and there’s dinners and the rest of it.

“Oh, there were other racing commitments. Are you serious?

“Zak used to be mister everywhere. Nowhere this season.”

Brown was not the only team leader to miss the second race of the season, however.

Adrian Newey was also absent in China as Aston Martin battle far more serious issues with their design, which is causing massive vibrations that have left drivers battling numbness in their hands.

For McLaren, it was up to team principal Andrea Stella as well as Piastri and Norris to front the media after the weekend’s disastrous double DNS.

The Australian expressed his disappointment, while his British teammate was more scathing.

“The other part is, on the other side of the garage, Lando is not liking these cars,” Supercars legend Mark Skaife said.

“Lando said ‘no one grew up wanting to drive these cars’.

“He’s the world champion and he’s not a happy camper.”

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph’s James Phelps suggested that the absence of Brown and Newey could be indicative of an early focus on 2027.

“I’ve got a bit of a theory,” Phelps said.

“Ferrari abandoned their 2025 program in about April and that’s one of the big reasons why McLaren are so far behind.

“They were fighting for a world championship and so were Red Bull.

“They didn’t bother with the CFD testing. They got in these new cars really late.

“Maybe they’re already looking at next year and it might be the right call.”

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Skaife does not believe that is the case, however.

Instead, he stated that the unfortunate circumstances taking place in the world right now may offer McLaren an opportunity.

“The gap with the cancellation of the Middle East rounds will serve them well because they can actually get away and do some testing,” Skaife said.

“They’ve got to get on with it. They’ve got to actually show what McLaren stand for.”

Next month’s Bahrain and Saudi Arabian races were both cancelled due to the conflict in the Middle East.

It now means there will be a five-week gap between next weekend’s Japanese GP and the Miami GP in early May.

McLaren desperately need to use that time to play catch-up on their rivals.

Mercedes have raced out of the blocks with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli winning the first two races of the years, but the tension between the two teams extends beyond the track.

McLaren uses a Mercedes power unit, and the team in papaya was vocal after the Australian Grand Prix about the flow of information they have received from the manufacturer so far.

That has only made things more difficult for McLaren, which already had a mountain to climb given the effort spent on the 2025 world title campaign.

“I think the part of it we’ve got to contemplate is how hard they have to work at the end of last year to win the world [drivers] championship and the constructors championship,” Skaife said.

“Because everybody else has got the jump on them now.

“I think the part that has come back and is really biting them is they are a genuine customer team with Mercedes, and that customer team scenario is never great when you change the regulations around.

“Because you see how well Mercedes are going, but it’s not the same for McLaren.”

“When you’ve got customers, especially McLaren, whose cars don’t even start races, that is high ticket stuff. Big, big drama,” Skaife later added.

“I wouldn’t have liked to have been at that debrief. It’d have been on for young and old.”

Piastri will be hoping those discussions can spark a record-breaking turnaround.

Having not yet started a Grand Prix and only having three points to his name via the sprint race in China, the 24-year-old from Melbourne sits 48 points behind championship leader Russell.

If Piastri is to win a maiden world title, it would surpass the biggest comeback in F1 history – which belongs to Max Verstappen, who stormed home from 46 points down in 2022.

With history not on his side, Phelps believes Piastri is going to need something really special.

“They had two cars crash out on the weekend, so they don’t have any data for both cards,” he said.

“They’ve got Melbourne for Lando and that’s it.

“They’re fighting back from everything that’s going on with their technical situation, and they’ve got to come out with no data swinging.

“It’s not looking good for him.”