2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

https://www.mclaren.com/racing/formula- ... =2026-news

Launch 09.02.26

The first time in years (ever?) the launch is not in Woking/MTC/UK? Wonder if this is new ownership related

They seem to be trying to hide the car for as long as possible. This online only livery launch is 2 days before the Bahrain test. Usually they were one of the few that really launched a proper car. I'm disappointed they are not launching the real car but if it means they keep their advantage, so be it.

If I recall correctly, Zak said Mclaren were involved early on with Merc on the new PU layout ect?..... so yes there will be some disadvantage at start, but I do not except a repeat of 2014.

Aero development couldn't start before mid 2025 and the engine dimensions needed to be finalized much earlier than that. To me this means that at least in 2026, "works" advantage should be smaller than usual as Mercedes couldn't design their aero and then make the engine fit, at best they could give rough ideas of what they want to do and then work from there but the engine guys were the lead here.

Hywel Thomas said so in his interview.

[Badger]

Aero development couldn't start before mid 2025 and the engine dimensions needed to be finalized much earlier than that. To me this means that at least in 2026, "works" advantage should be smaller than usual as Mercedes couldn't design their aero and then make the engine fit, at best they could give rough ideas of what they want to do and then work from there but the engine guys were the lead here.

Hywel Thomas said so in his interview.

He didn’t say any of that in the interview. You’re just making things up.

[Juzh]

As a customer you don’t get some factory sealed unconfigurable power unit as a product. All customers come up with their own deployment mappings that best fit their respective cars. This will not change in 2026.

No, they dont. They get mercedes pre-programmed maps with various offsets and that's it. It's all within the scope of the PU package. Customers never re-programmed these things themselves. I specifically remember someone from RBR saying they can't influence renault at all in deployment strategies, even when their calculations said something was better than what renault provided (that was back in the renault days).

[Emag]

As a customer you don’t get some factory sealed unconfigurable power unit as a product. All customers come up with their own deployment mappings that best fit their respective cars. This will not change in 2026.

No, they dont. They get mercedes pre-programmed maps with various offsets and that's it. It's all within the scope of the PU package. Customers never re-programmed these things themselves. I specifically remember someone from RBR saying they can't influence renault at all in deployment strategies, even when their calculations said something was better than what renault provided (that was back in the renault days).

I don't know what Renault was doing with RedBull. Perhaps their 2014-2017 software was more locked in. RedBull-Renault partnership its a bit ancient now.

I do know that all Mercedes customers do not have the same deployment maps though. I specifically know about this because I was curious a couple of years ago and I compared by looking into the steering wheel to check energy levels (SOC) on the side and they were different for all customers at specific points of the track during qualifying laps when you assume same engine mode for all. And you're free to look into this yourself, I am too lazy to go back and take screenshots right now.

It's also a no brainer. If a customer only had access to some default mapping that the factory team provides, then McLaren was never going to win any races because their drag/downforce configuration is completely different to that of Mercedes. They would be losing tenths to literally even a full second on some tracks if they ran with un-optimized mappings on a power unit which relies so much on electrical energy.

Also the last time RedBull used Renault was in 2018, which was the first year of the new regulation that forced parity between customers and factory teams. This includes having the same software available, which is what it's used to configure the engine. Before that, it wouldn't be surprising if they had complains.

You can read more about the TD here

[LionsHeart]

That would be my guess as well. I would imagine they will do the Barcelona test with a camo livery then on a very basic car.

I think all 11 cars in Barcelona are going to be black. Maybe except RBR.
Looks like McLaren will do a basic garage/pitlane reveal before a BAH filming day before the second test. They have also announced a large public event in the UK on Feb 22, which will likely be the "real" launch with all the fanfare

Based on my info the event in London, at Apollo on Feb 22, is only for Zak and Lando, to get in touch with the fans and has nothing to do with MCL40:
https://www.eventim.co.uk/event/victory ... iliate=HAL

Also according to some sources FIA is pushing teams to use camo livery for Barcelona test, so the "real" liveries to be presented outside Barcelona event.

Planetf1.com reports that Formula 1 teams are asked to use camo liveries during 2026 Barcelona tests, iunless they've already been launched
Barcelona tests are the first of the pre-season, and is behind closed doors. It's meant to offer teams the opportunity to test their cars and find any major technical issue away from the public.
As such, there is no real incentive for teams to show their liveries in Barcelona already, and F1 asked specifically not to, so that fans get their first look at the new colours in Bahrain
https://scontent.fotp3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=696806FC

This is exactly what I expected. However, it has its own logic and meaning. Therefore, we will focus all our attention on Bahrain.

[Badger]

HPP has its own engineers working inside of every customer team, presumably these are the people that create mappings and settings. These would logically be individual to every team to best suit their car, but always within the parameters set by HPP for the smooth operation of the engine. You could say that the customers get to play the game within the parameters set by the manufacturer, but HPP in conjunction with the works team created the game and set the parameters to fit their needs.

[Emag]

HPP has its own engineers working inside of every customer team, presumably these are the people that create mappings and settings. These would logically be individual to every team to best suit their car, but always within the parameters set by HPP for the smooth operation of the engine. You could say that the customers get to play the game within the parameters set by the manufacturer, but HPP in conjunction with the works team created the game and set the parameters to fit their needs.

Well okay, we are being a bit pedantic here, but yes, technically the customers don't configure the power units themselves. They have engineers from Mercedes HPP assigned to them that works on that. But it's ludicrous to assume they have no control on it. They do have enough control on it to dictate exactly how they want that energy deployed throughout a lap (for example, McLaren could handle a medium speed corner better than Mercedes, so they deploy more energy mid-apex of that corner to get a better exit).

And yes, you are right that they're limited by what Mercedes HPP defined as a valid configuration that the hardware accepts. And in that, there could be limitations that the customers have to accept. Let's say they defined a constraint like "can't deploy more than 10% at once" for example because maybe Mercedes can't deal with the heat (this is just an example, it's almost definitely not a real thing).

But you're still allowed to alter how the power unit behaves within those constraints. That's why these points about Mercedes having an advantage on where/how they deploy energy are moot. All customers have that control as well. They also tweak mappings (with the assigned engineers) in a way that best fits their car.

Mercedes' main advantage over their customers is in the integration and the physical layout of the power unit. Not these software level differences that all customers have a high degree of control on. But Mercedes could work together with the HPP department to make certain compromises and physical shape decisions that benefit their chassis/aero departments. Customers don't have that. They need to come up with the best concept they can within the physical blueprint that Mercedes gives them. And this is not to be underestimated, because what McLaren think could be the best chassis concept to start the new regulation with, could be something that is completely different to that of Mercedes and they would be forced to make compromises to their chassis if it doesn't align perfectly with the physical dimensions that Mercedes gives them.

Another problem is cooling package. Let's say Mercedes comes up with some exotic cooling solution that benefits their aero platform that requires radiators mounted in a specific way for best efficiency. This could mess up the customer's concept also, because they would have to either have less efficient cooling, or just deal with the compromise to their concept to accomodate the cooling.

[LionsHeart]

As a customer you don’t get some factory sealed unconfigurable power unit as a product. All customers come up with their own deployment mappings that best fit their respective cars. This will not change in 2026.

No, they dont. They get mercedes pre-programmed maps with various offsets and that's it. It's all within the scope of the PU package. Customers never re-programmed these things themselves. I specifically remember someone from RBR saying they can't influence renault at all in deployment strategies, even when their calculations said something was better than what renault provided (that was back in the renault days).

I don't know what Renault was doing with RedBull. Perhaps their 2014-2017 software was more locked in. RedBull-Renault partnership its a bit ancient now.

I do know that all Mercedes customers do not have the same deployment maps though. I specifically know about this because I was curious a couple of years ago and I compared by looking into the steering wheel to check energy levels (SOC) on the side and they were different for all customers at specific points of the track during qualifying laps when you assume same engine mode for all. And you're free to look into this yourself, I am too lazy to go back and take screenshots right now.

It's also a no brainer. If a customer only had access to some default mapping that the factory team provides, then McLaren was never going to win any races because their drag/downforce configuration is completely different to that of Mercedes. They would be losing tenths to literally even a full second on some tracks if they ran with un-optimized mappings on a power unit which relies so much on electrical energy.

Also the last time RedBull used Renault was in 2018, which was the first year of the new regulation that forced parity between customers and factory teams. This includes having the same software available, which is what it's used to configure the engine. Before that, it wouldn't be surprising if they had complains.

You can read more about the TD here

I don't understand how this is up for debate.

True, mwillems and I noted this fact a year and a half or two ago when looking at the telemetry. It was clearly visible that McLaren uses slightly more energy on corner exits, but loses top speed sooner near the braking zone. This is normal, considering all teams have the same amount of electrical energy per lap. So I don't understand why people are misled. As far as I remember, and my memory isn't perfect, there was a time when the FIA ​​required all powertrain manufacturers to issue a standard fuel map for all competitors.

This ruled out "party mode" for Mercedes and other competitors. Let's recall Bahrain in 2014. How many laps did it take two Mercedes cars to pull 30 seconds clear of their closest rival? If I remember correctly, no more than 10-11 laps. There was also the issue of standardizing the fuel map for internal combustion engines, meaning the same map would be used in qualifying and the race. But this doesn't apply to electrical energy. And that's something that teams can manipulate as they please. The key is that the total battery capacity doesn't exceed 4 MJ, while only 2 MJ of energy can be stored per lap.

It's the electrical component that allows each team to achieve maximum speed and acceleration. This is where engineers have room to develop. Starting next season, this electrical energy will double to 8.5 MJ, and teams will also need to learn how to properly distribute it throughout the lap, as well as how to store energy during a single lap to avoid battery depletion. It's unclear exactly how the FIA ​​will maintain this balance for each track. After all, there are tracks with many sharp and heavy braking zones where KERS (MGU-K) is effective, and tracks where KERS is ineffective, and MGU-H is now absent.

[FittingMechanics]

Aero development couldn't start before mid 2025 and the engine dimensions needed to be finalized much earlier than that. To me this means that at least in 2026, "works" advantage should be smaller than usual as Mercedes couldn't design their aero and then make the engine fit, at best they could give rough ideas of what they want to do and then work from there but the engine guys were the lead here.

Hywel Thomas said so in his interview.

He didn’t say any of that in the interview. You’re just making things up.

My bad, it was not Hywel Thomas, it was Ben Hodgkinson of RBPT who said that they wasn't a lot of interaction with the aero team because it was not allowed by the rules to start working on the aero and that the gestation time of an F1 engine is quite long (4 years in their case). They started proper interaction in January 2025 (thought it was mid 2025).

In this interview, at about 2 minute mark.

[Badger]

HPP has its own engineers working inside of every customer team, presumably these are the people that create mappings and settings. These would logically be individual to every team to best suit their car, but always within the parameters set by HPP for the smooth operation of the engine. You could say that the customers get to play the game within the parameters set by the manufacturer, but HPP in conjunction with the works team created the game and set the parameters to fit their needs.

Well okay, we are being a bit pedantic here, but yes, technically the customers don't configure the power units themselves. They have engineers from Mercedes HPP assigned to them that works on that. But it's ludicrous to assume they have no control on it. They do have enough control on it to dictate exactly how they want that energy deployed throughout a lap (for example, McLaren could handle a medium speed corner better than Mercedes, so they deploy more energy mid-apex of that corner to get a better exit).

And yes, you are right that they're limited by what Mercedes HPP defined as a valid configuration that the hardware accepts. And in that, there could be limitations that the customers have to accept. Let's say they defined a constraint like "can't deploy more than 10% at once" for example because maybe Mercedes can't deal with the heat (this is just an example, it's almost definitely not a real thing).

But you're still allowed to alter how the power unit behaves within those constraints. That's why these points about Mercedes having an advantage on where/how they deploy energy are moot. All customers have that control as well. They also tweak mappings (with the assigned engineers) in a way that best fits their car.

Mercedes' main advantage over their customers is in the integration and the physical layout of the power unit. Not these software level differences that all customers have a high degree of control on. But Mercedes could work together with the HPP department to make certain compromises and physical shape decisions that benefit their chassis/aero departments. Customers don't have that. They need to come up with the best concept they can within the physical blueprint that Mercedes gives them. And this is not to be underestimated, because what McLaren think could be the best chassis concept to start the new regulation with, could be something that is completely different to that of Mercedes and they would be forced to make compromises to their chassis if it doesn't align perfectly with the physical dimensions that Mercedes gives them.

Another problem is cooling package. Let's say Mercedes comes up with some exotic cooling solution that benefits their aero platform that requires radiators mounted in a specific way for best efficiency. This could mess up the customer's concept also, because they would have to either have less efficient cooling, or just deal with the compromise to their concept to accomodate the cooling.

Not sure it needed all that, my comment literally says "These would logically be individual to every team to best suit their car", which implies a certain level of control.

That being said it's not total control, HPP designs everything from hardware to software with the works team in mind. The customers are simply invited to use the same product. If the software with all its tools works for them as well that's great.

[Emag]

Not sure it needed all that, my comment literally says "These would logically be individual to every team to best suit their car", which implies a certain level of control.

That being said it's not total control, HPP designs everything from hardware to software with the works team in mind. The customers are simply invited to use the same product. If the software with all its tools works for them as well that's great.

It wasn't an objection to what you said, more of a clarification for previous commenters and future readers

[CjC]

There’s a lot of effort going into these posts.
All I’ll say is that somebody must have forgotten to tell Brawn/Honda that they couldn’t start the 2009 season off with the best package because their ingenuity wasn't designed to be powered by a last minute customer engine deal from Mercedes.

[Badger]

Aero development couldn't start before mid 2025 and the engine dimensions needed to be finalized much earlier than that. To me this means that at least in 2026, "works" advantage should be smaller than usual as Mercedes couldn't design their aero and then make the engine fit, at best they could give rough ideas of what they want to do and then work from there but the engine guys were the lead here.

Hywel Thomas said so in his interview.

He didn’t say any of that in the interview. You’re just making things up.

My bad, it was not Hywel Thomas, it was Ben Hodgkinson of RBPT who said that they wasn't a lot of interaction with the aero team because it was not allowed by the rules to start working on the aero and that the gestation time of an F1 engine is quite long (4 years in their case). They started proper interaction in January 2025 (thought it was mid 2025).

In this interview, at about 2 minute mark.

Yeah, teams were not allowed to start properly working on the 2026 car before 2025. That being said, and I think I've made this point to you before, do you think RBPT, Ferrari, and Mercedes were designing their engines in a vacuum before then? You don't think Hywel Thomas and Ben Hodgkinson had clear informal directions from their respective chassis side about their wishes for the engine in regards to shape, cooling, weight, driveability, performance etc.? You can't exactly stop people from having informal meetings off the record.

I seriously doubt that Pierre Waché and James Allison turned up on Jan 1st of 2025 to the factory and were shocked to find what their engine departments had come up with

[FittingMechanics]

Yeah, teams were not allowed to start properly working on the 2026 car before 2025. That being said, and I think I've made this point to you before, do you think RBPT, Ferrari, and Mercedes were designing their engines in a vacuum before then? You don't think Hywel Thomas and Ben Hodgkinson had clear informal directions from their respective chassis side about their wishes for the engine in regards to shape, cooling, weight, driveability, performance etc.? You can't exactly stop people from having informal meetings off the record.

I seriously doubt that Pierre Waché and James Allison turned up on Jan 1st of 2025 to the factory and were shocked to find what their engine departments had come up with

I do think they talk and share ideas. This is one of the reasons why I think that FIA should slowly push Red Bull to divest from their junior team, it is too easy to exploit this to gain an advantage (for example you send them in one direction to test some ideas and get feedback). Ben Hodgkinson is probably covering his ass here and saying "we didn't really talk much before we weren't allowed too". They probably talked, but they couldn't run aero simulations to give real direction.

There is a difference in talking about ideas and being given precise packaging requirements after you already have aero design charted.

[Emag]

There’s a lot of effort going into these posts.
All I’ll say is that somebody must have forgotten to tell Brawn/Honda that they couldn’t start the 2009 season off with the best package because their ingenuity wasn't designed to be powered by a last minute customer engine deal from Mercedes.

Well the situation is a bit different because McLaren have to compete against Mercedes themselves this time.

And just to be clear, I am not arguing that there is zero disadvantage for McLaren (and other customers) compared to Mercedes on the first year of a brand new regulation set with brand new power units. I am arguing about the nature of that disadvantage (flexibility in deployment maps not being one of them) and also the magnitude of that disadvantage (we should not see gaps similar to what we saw in 2014, because we have budget caps now and also forced parity in power units between customers and manufacturers).

Expectations-wise, I would personally not expect any of Mercedes' customers to be on par with them starting the season. However, given the recent track record plus available resources (both human and infrastructure), I would definitely expect McLaren to be able to bridge the gap to the factory team just because they already proved they can do it. I just can't really make any guesses on *when I expect that to happen without seeing what the pace picture looks like after the first couple of races.

I personally think if any of the customers start the season on-par with Mercedes, that should be considered a big disappointment for the factory team.