McLaren has launched an investigation with engine supplier Mercedes to investigate why both of its cars suffered terminal electrical faults that ruled them out of the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday, as Formula 1 champion Lando Norris said the team must rule out a repeat.
Norris was stuck waiting in his car in McLaren's garage before time ran out for him to join the grid, and teammate Oscar Piastri had to be withdrawn from the grid minutes before the start with what McLaren termed separate electrical problems with its Mercedes-supplied power unit. Piastri was due to start fifth and Norris sixth.
It was the first time in Norris' eight-season F1 career that he has missed a race and Piastri's second missed race in a row after crashing on his way to the grid at his home race in Australia.
“We just have to take it on the chin, learn what the problem was, and make sure it never happens again,” Norris said. “Everyone in the team is frustrated, our engineers, mechanics and HPP (Mercedes High Performance Powertrains) teammates. All of us want to go racing and score points.”
McLaren said a “joint investigation” with Mercedes' HPP engine operation would be launched.
McLaren has so far failed to match the pace of the works Mercedes team, whose drivers have won both Grand Prix races and the sole sprint race under the new 2026 regulations, which put more emphasis on electrical power. McLaren has previously said it's concerned with what it considers a lack of information on how to get the best out of the Mercedes systems.
Four cars in total failed to start Sunday, including Gabriel Bortoleto's Audi and the Mercedes-powered Williams of Alex Albon, which had a hydraulic-system failure.
There are also concerns at Aston Martin after a double retirement for the reliability-plagued team. Lance Stroll's race ended early with a battery failure, a repeat issue with its Honda power unit. Aston Martin said “discomfort from vibrations” forced Fernando Alonso to stop.
Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey this month said his car was shaking so much it risked “permanent nerve damage” in its drivers' hands without major improvements.
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain watches the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix race at the Shanghai International Circuit, in Shanghai, China, Sunday, March 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)
PARIS (AP) — Donald Trump explained the appeal in one sentence: “Versailles is not gold leaf — Versailles is the real deal.”
For Emmanuel Macron, that was precisely the point.
On Wednesday night, the French president threw open Louis XIV’s palace to his U.S. counterpart for a private reception, show and dinner marking America’s 250th birthday. At a turbulent moment for the trans-Atlantic alliance, it could help Macron keep a personal channel open as the two navigate differences over Iran, Ukraine and tariffs.
It already kept Trump from leaving a Group of Seven summit early, as he did last year in Canada.
“I’m a fan of beautiful places,” he told reporters, saying he had planned to leave earlier until “a very nice man” invited him to dinner.
After posing in front of Versailles' golden doors, Trump enjoyed a private tour of the chateau's glittering interior. And in a surprise move over a dinner of lobster, caviar and vanilla ice cream, he signed a memorandum on ending the war in Iran at a venue steeped in historical symbolism.
Versailles is perhaps the biggest soft-power flex available to a French president: the Hall of Mirrors, the gardens of the Sun King and several centuries of carefully polished national grandeur.
“Versailles is a diplomatic tool and an instrument of influence,” Macron said Wednesday, likening diplomacy to soccer. “Whether I’m playing at home or away, my goal is to score goals. And when I host other teams, I try to give them a nice welcome.”
France holds little economic or military sway over Washington, so pageantry is one of its few levers — even as its use elsewhere has brought mixed results at best.
Macron and Trump have often clashed over policy.
Their relationship has endured partly because Macron understands the power of personal attention, dramatic settings and a well-timed invitation.
Their first meeting in 2017 produced a white-knuckled handshake that instantly became a symbol of their competitive rapport.
Months later came dinner inside the Eiffel Tower and a place of honor at France’s Bastille Day parade.
Versailles raises the stakes, allowing a French president to wrap a modern political encounter in the scale and authority of national history.
“It is soft-power flex based on hard buildings,” said Denis Lacorne, professor of American studies at Sciences Po.
Macron has used the palace before, receiving Russian President Vladimir Putin there in 2017 and later hosting King Charles III and Queen Camilla for a state dinner.
Versailles has been a favored setting for French leaders to honor foreign guests for over three centuries, the palace told The Associated Press. It remains “a place in the service of French diplomacy.”
With Trump, the setting carries added resonance.
The former real estate developer has long treated architecture as a statement of status, success and power. In his second term, he has sought to erect a legacy in stone — with plans for a new White House ballroom and a 250-foot (76-meter) triumphal arch resembling Paris’ Arc de Triomphe.
The evening included a Hall of Mirrors visit and fountain display.
The Hall of Mirrors was once a feat of technology: 357 mirrors set in 17 arches along a 73-meter (240-foot) gallery, showing French manufacturers could rival Venice’s celebrated glassmakers.
They were also built to multiply a king. Every royal entrance ricocheted across the glass, and a modern guest gets the same treatment.
“You will be reflected many, many times, from one mirror to another,” Lacorne said.
For a president who has spent his second term turning the Oval Office gold, the appeal is clear, he added.
Trump arrives, in a sense, at a building he has quoted for years: He has said he modeled Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom after Versailles.
Trump remembers spectacle, and often brings it home.
The 2017 Bastille Day parade saw tanks, horses and marching bands fill the Champs-Élysées as fighter jets trailing red, white and blue smoke soared overhead.
Trump called it “one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen.”
“We’re going to have to try and top it,” he said back in Washington, where he began pressing for a military parade. In 2025, he finally presided over a large Army anniversary parade through the capital.
China employed dazzle diplomacy when it hosted Trump for a “state visit plus” in 2017, including a rare tour of its Forbidden City, an experience once reserved for emperors.
Britain offered its own version last September, greeting Trump’s second state visit with mounted troops, a carriage procession and a Windsor Castle banquet.
The diplomatic pomp has clearly flattered Trump, who called the Windsor banquet one of the highest honors of his life.
But it seems to have won few concessions.
The early Macron-Trump “bromance” has hardened into something rougher and more transactional.
Trump has threatened tariffs of up to 100% on French wine and Champagne amid a broader trade fight. France opposed the U.S. war against Iran, even as Macron pressed Washington to keep backing Ukraine.
At home, the dinner has drawn criticism.
“We must learn once and for all to live without Trump,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran far-left leader.
Versailles hands Macron some advantages, experts say: centuries of diplomatic history, a setting built for Trump’s taste for ceremony, and a palace already familiar to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who visit each year.
History counsels caution. Ronald Reagan dined beneath the same mirrors on the sidelines of the 1982 G7, and central disagreements outlasted the splendor.
Angela Charlton in Paris and Michel Euler in Versailles contributed.
France's President Emmanuel Macron, center, his wife Brigitte, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump pose before a private dinner to celebrate the USA's 250th birthday, at the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron are silhouetted inside the Palace of Versailles, Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Versailles, France. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
U.S. President Donald Trump receives a tour of Chateau de Versailles from President Emmanuel Macron ahead of a dinner on Wednesday, June 17, 2026 in Versailles, France, after the G7 summit in Evian, France. (Anna Moneymaker/Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. President Donald Trump, left, receives a tour of Chateau de Versailles from President Emmanuel Macron ahead of a dinner on Wednesday, June 17, 2026 in Versailles, France, after the G7 summit in Evian, France. (Anna Moneymaker/Pool Photo via AP)
France's President Emmanuel Macron, left, his wife Brigitte, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump pose before a private dinner to celebrate the USA's 250th birthday, at the Palace of Versailles, outside Paris, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
FILE - Visitors walk inside the Hall of Mirrors in the Versailles castle, on Nov. 17, 2015 in Versailles, west of Paris. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
