2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[Emag]

I read somewhere that you must choose between a car with high rake and a car with the hole in the difusser.

Nonsense. The top 4 of last year have similar amounts of rake if you compare them from the same angle.

[Emag]

33 laps on the morning session. Considering they went out 2 hours late, not horrible for the first day I guess. I think RedBull and Mercedes did 56 and 44 respectively on their first sessions.

Added the laptimes as well, but I think they're too irrelevant at this point. For reference though. Isack had a 18.8 on his first session and Kimi had a 20.7

[bauc]

Lets go! the car looks very nice on track, its a slow start but we had the least amount of time and CFD allowance for development, so it is to be expected, I think.

[Motörhead]

I read somewhere that you must choose between a car with high rake and a car with the hole in the difusser.

Entirely correct .
Running rake on the ground effect era was to eliminate the advantage of the ground effect.
The only reason to run higher was to avoid porpoising.
We need to think in terms of the pre ground effect era. Different teams ran with different rake depending on their philosophy.

[organic]

Running high rake + no cutout may be the "accepting you'll ingest tyre squirt losses but higher potential downforce in theory with greater expansion"

Running cutout + low rake may be the other approach of "attempting to isolate the majority of the high energy diffuser flow from the lossy boundary layer + tyre squirt.

Maybe McLaren fit into camp A, and that could be for multiple reasons: did they find the large cutout idea but choose to go towards the higher rake, or simply didn't understand the full lower rake picture? We'll see

[LionsHeart]

From SkyF1. I'll just leave it here.

[Darth-Piekus]

Any news of the afternoon session?

[bauc]

Any news of the afternoon session?

Not much info due the stupid closed test rules

[SmallSoldier]

Both the MCL38 and MCL39 had a “mouse hole” in the diffuser section… Most teams used one in the previous generation of cars, so they understand the impact on the diffuser and interaction of those with the rear tire squirt.

No idea if McLaren has one or not, but it’s not like if the solution is an innovation from Teams… All structures have to work together, if they don’t have one, it may simply be because it’s not the optimal solution for their package

[Emag]

Any news of the afternoon session?

Not much info due the stupid closed test rules

Some are reporting they just went on track at 16:30-ish for the first time after the lunch break. 2 and half hours sitting in the garage.

Not having a shakedown before I guess impacted them. Might have seen some issues or they're trying things.
If Lando gets anywhere close to a 70 lap tally it should be considered a good day I guess.

[Nicktendo86]

More flowviz at that rear corner

https://x.com/soymotor/status/201653744 ... 9iyhp-jHmg

[bauc]

Any news of the afternoon session?

Not much info due the stupid closed test rules

Some are reporting they just went on track at 16:30-ish for the first time after the lunch break. 2 and half hours sitting in the garage.

Not having a shakedown before I guess impacted them. Might have seen some issues or they're trying things.
If Lando gets anywhere close to a 70 lap tally it should be considered a good day I guess.

I agree, In essence, this is our shakedown

[Emag]

If these lap counts are correct, it's not so bad for a first day considering all the delays. Essentially they only used half the time of each session

Early day 3 laptimes and lap count released :



That is seriously impressive by Merc. 183 laps between their drivers.

[Seerix]

I saw the same lap count/times on different twitter user, so it might be legit.
74 is fine for what was essentially a shakedown day.

[MTudor]

I feel so deflated,I was looking forward for today,to see the car.....then nothing!!!
This happens when money talks!!!
Efing FIA!!!