2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[WardenOfTheNorth]

That is not a good look

No. Looks cheap.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

McLaren is not planning to launch its car until an event that takes place in Bahrain on February 9 – which is just two days before the first open test begins in Bahrain.
In the meantime, McLaren is set to run in the private test that takes place at Barcelona between January 26 and 30. Teams are allowed to run for three of the five days of action.

I suppose no planned shakedown before Barcelona then?
They've been awfully quiet this time around. No "teasers" and seemingly no fireup video either. One can wonder if they're a bit tight on schedules ...

Our Silverstone villager ( ) said that 4 teams had shakedowns booked in Silverstone. If plans have not changed, then it would be Mclaren, Mercedes, and Williams in the next 2-3 days.

https://i.postimg.cc/4NsnJzBX/image.png

Can neither confirm or deny. But suffice to say that at least one team must have changed their plans.

[Emag]

I suppose no planned shakedown before Barcelona then?
They've been awfully quiet this time around. No "teasers" and seemingly no fireup video either. One can wonder if they're a bit tight on schedules ...

Our Silverstone villager ( ) said that 4 teams had shakedowns booked in Silverstone. If plans have not changed, then it would be Mclaren, Mercedes, and Williams in the next 2-3 days.

https://i.postimg.cc/4NsnJzBX/image.png

Can neither confirm or deny. But suffice to say that at least one team must have changed their plans.

It is quite unlike McLaren to have a completely unannounced "secret" shakedown to be honest. They're probably preparing the cargo for Barcelona next week.

[the EDGE]

Our Silverstone villager ( ) said that 4 teams had shakedowns booked in Silverstone. If plans have not changed, then it would be Mclaren, Mercedes, and Williams in the next 2-3 days.

https://i.postimg.cc/4NsnJzBX/image.png

Can neither confirm or deny. But suffice to say that at least one team must have changed their plans.

It is quite unlike McLaren to have a completely unannounced "secret" shakedown to be honest. They're probably preparing the cargo for Barcelona next week.

Didn’t they release videos of the car last year, from its un-announced shakedown, The day of the F1 75 launch?

[haza]

Our Silverstone villager ( ) said that 4 teams had shakedowns booked in Silverstone. If plans have not changed, then it would be Mclaren, Mercedes, and Williams in the next 2-3 days.

https://i.postimg.cc/4NsnJzBX/image.png

Can neither confirm or deny. But suffice to say that at least one team must have changed their plans.

It is quite unlike McLaren to have a completely unannounced "secret" shakedown to be honest. They're probably preparing the cargo for Barcelona next week.

Went to Silverstone today no f1 cars on track alpines were the only trucks there seemed they were getting set up most the day few personnel pondering about

[SilviuAgo]

[swifteddie1]

Each team will be able to take to the track on only three of the five days on the calendar: McLaren has made it official that it will skip Monday and it is very likely that several other teams will follow the world champions' example.

https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-ra ... /10791753/

Not sure how reliable this is.

[FittingMechanics]

The Race also reporting McLaren skipping Monday. Not great news as that looks to be a decent day weather wise (currently Tuesday/Wednesday show rain)

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/mcla ... barcelona/

The MCL40 is currently in Austria, running on the dynos at engineering specialist AVL, which McLaren uses to sign off systems more confidently than using the facilities it has at its own base.

"That's where the car is at the moment, and then the car will be in Barcelona for the shakedown on track - this will happen directly at the test," said Stella.

"We plan to start testing either in day two or day three, so we will not be testing on day one, we wanted to give ourselves as much time as possible for development."

[FittingMechanics]

Reading the full article, at least according to Stella this was their plan as they wanted to push development as long as possible. So they intentionally sacrificed early days of test in order to bring the most developed car they can.

I'm kind of worried if there are problems but at the same time, I like that they are still taking things to the limit. It is similar to going out the last in qualifying, you usually get the best track but sometimes it hurts you.

[CjC]

I’m not surprised in the least to be honest.
It’s the mentality of a confident world champions. We’ve seen the same pre-season strategy from Red Bull in the past- when Rob Marshall had his stint there.
Doesn’t mean they’ll have the quickest car from the get go- they may never have the quickest car in this ruleset but I’m confident they are doing what’s best for them considering they have the least amount of development available to them.

[bauc]

Mclaren is not missing day 1, there is a 5 day window for a 3 day test, you are free to choose which 3 days you will run, so no it's just a clickbait headline that is all.

[FittingMechanics]

I’m not surprised in the least to be honest.
It’s the mentality of a confident world champions. We’ve seen the same pre-season strategy from Red Bull in the past- when Rob Marshall had his stint there.
Doesn’t mean they’ll have the quickest car from the get go- they may never have the quickest car in this ruleset but I’m confident they are doing what’s best for them considering they have the least amount of development available to them.

Yeah. I agree with this. If you are confident you usually are able to push things further, qualifying is a great example where Max is usually last on track because he is confident he can nail that one lap and make it work.

[Emag]

It's been a weird pre season, there hasn't been much coming from them.
This decision to skip the first day is neither good or bad. They're only allowed to test for 3 days so in the end it wont make a big difference. But one could also interpret it as them being on the limit with the schedules and just couldn't have the car ready in time. They didn't have a shakedown before Barcelona either and they have done one before testing in the last 4 years as far as I remember.

The other comment about this first iteration of the car that will hit Barcelona next week being pretty much what they will run in Melbourne is quite interesting though. I don't take it as something positive if that's really the case. It only makes sense if you're very confident that what you have cannot be easily copied by opponents. Even then, I wouldn't expect them to run a race-ready floor by the first test already.

Now to be fair, Ferrari had a similar approach in 2022. Let's see how it pans out for McLaren this time around.

[FittingMechanics]

But this slow approach to upgrades was what McLaren did last few years. They took their time with understanding them before racing them. Usually they would bring an upgrade to the track, test it out, then remove it from the car, evaluate the data at the factory and then only at the next race or a few later they would fit it to the car for good. They avoided many issues other teams faced with "downgrades".

I don't see this as that different.

Another aspect is that someone who signed off on the design a month earlier will have a second iteration coming but the amount of development is the same.

[genarro]

its go big or go home. They are in fact the double champions

We gots this

Also please check a video from The Race, John Noble and Edd Straw are at MTC and did some explaining the whole testing plan. Got a feeling that we are silently optimistic and the team has an idea where they are.