2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[JonoNic]

Interesting that Lando says this..."It's pretty different. It's a step slower in terms of cornering speeds" when Max is saying the car has more downforce than anything he's ever driven. Hmmmmmmmm

Fake quote I think. These cars aren't supposed to have more downforce than previous gen. If they did, factoring in the smaller weight + higher top speeds, they would be flying and not doing these 1:18s and 1:17s like they are doing now.

If Red Bull made a car that has more downforce than anything Max has ever driven then the rest better pack it up

Teams can be more aggressive with aero since both wings get paired back on the straights. Maybe Mclaren missed a trick, or they are just very conservative in these sessions. Most likely the second one as they were running on intermediates and mediums too.

[geogate]

closed test to save embarrassment of unreliability given how extensive the changes are, plus a couple new manufacturers. plus Bahrain probably paid a lot of money to be the official winter test.
On an aside, i think the McLaren is a lil less bulletproof than the Mercedes, which is to be expected - but first day is very, very positive. Car looks quick out the box, and surprisingly developed. Makes you think they didnt do a whole lot of in season development last year

[mythr-ran-dire]

Is McLaren the car with the shortest wheelbase of all this year? It looks tiny and nimble again.

As I recall, among pre-ground effect cars the RB tended to have the highest rake and a shorter wheelbase compared to the low rake cars like Mercedes. Assuming the two qualities are not just correlated, the MCL40 may indeed be a shorter wheelbase this year. It’ll be well into the season until we’ll be able to confirm this though, if at all.

[avantman]

Is McLaren the car with the shortest wheelbase of all this year? It looks tiny and nimble again.

As I recall, among pre-ground effect cars the RB tended to have the highest rake and a shorter wheelbase compared to the low rake cars like Mercedes. Assuming the two qualities are not just correlated, the MCL40 may indeed be a shorter wheelbase this year. It’ll be well into the season until we’ll be able to confirm this though, if at all.

McLaren definitely had the shorter wheelbase in the last two years of ground effect era. As for pre-2022, all cars were at max allowed wheelbase in the end of those reg set as far as I recall. What you say was surely true in prior years for a decade or so.

[bauc]

It's a real pity that we have no way of seeing this test. Any reason why it was decided to be behind closed doors?

Two main reasons:

Fear of 2014 fiasco all over again.
Bahrein is actually paying to host the pre-season test, so this is not a ''test'' (even thogh it is) on paper is a shakedown course for all teams (one time exception due to implementation of new formula/rule reset)

[mwillems]

Interesting that Lando says this..."It's pretty different. It's a step slower in terms of cornering speeds" when Max is saying the car has more downforce than anything he's ever driven. Hmmmmmmmm

Fake quote I think. These cars aren't supposed to have more downforce than previous gen. If they did, factoring in the smaller weight + higher top speeds, they would be flying and not doing these 1:18s and 1:17s like they are doing now.

If Red Bull made a car that has more downforce than anything Max has ever driven then the rest better pack it up

Teams can be more aggressive with aero since both wings get paired back on the straights. Maybe Mclaren missed a trick, or they are just very conservative in these sessions. Most likely the second one as they were running on intermediates and mediums too.

I'm expecting teams to run with max wing and to see some cheeky solutions on the wings.

[the EDGE]

Fake quote I think. These cars aren't supposed to have more downforce than previous gen. If they did, factoring in the smaller weight + higher top speeds, they would be flying and not doing these 1:18s and 1:17s like they are doing now.

If Red Bull made a car that has more downforce than anything Max has ever driven then the rest better pack it up

Teams can be more aggressive with aero since both wings get paired back on the straights. Maybe Mclaren missed a trick, or they are just very conservative in these sessions. Most likely the second one as they were running on intermediates and mediums too.

I'm expecting teams to run with max wing and to see some cheeky solutions on the wings.

Sky presenters disagreed with that. They said that as SLM was only available in certain areas, being slippery was going to be a premium as the excess drag would be very detrimental on straights where SLM was not available. So far, what we have seen has backed this up, cars have not been seen with barn door wings

[FittingMechanics]

Sky presenters disagreed with that. They said that as SLM was only available in certain areas, being slippery was going to be a premium as the excess drag would be very detrimental on straights where SLM was not available. So far, what we have seen has backed this up, cars have not been seen with barn door wings

But you do have less of a trade off to make. Previously you would need to be slippery on the whole track, including these biggest/longest zones where your higher downforce would cost you the most. Now in those zones you can effectively shed a load of drag. This means that for optimal laptime you probably want to run more downforce on the rest of the lap.

This does not mean everyone will run Monaco levels of downforce everywhere. That is not how it works, but the balance of downforce will definitely move toward running more than they would without active aero. This will be especially true on tracks where most of the fast stuff is on the "active aero zones".

[Badger]

Teams can be more aggressive with aero since both wings get paired back on the straights. Maybe Mclaren missed a trick, or they are just very conservative in these sessions. Most likely the second one as they were running on intermediates and mediums too.

I'm expecting teams to run with max wing and to see some cheeky solutions on the wings.

Sky presenters disagreed with that. They said that as SLM was only available in certain areas, being slippery was going to be a premium as the excess drag would be very detrimental on straights where SLM was not available. So far, what we have seen has backed this up, cars have not been seen with barn door wings

All the rear wings are basically the same size due to legality boxes constraining them, there won't be any barn door wings.

[mwillems]

True, I probably went too far. I expect to see bigger wings in general with the balance on wing size moved by a noticeable amount to larger wings.

[SilviuAgo]

Oscar on track

[FittingMechanics]

We can see that they are continuing to test in the same way as last few years. They are not quick to exit the pits and they are in no rush to get back on track after they go into pits. Mileage probably won't be too high throughout the test.

Worked well last few years, why change.

[the EDGE]

Strange that McLaren took a wide range of tyre compounds with them, but still keep running on intermediates on a dry track

Could this be because of the track temperature?

[Darth-Piekus]

Strange that McLaren too a wide range of tyre compounds with them, but still keep running on intermediates on a dry track

Could this be because of the track temperature?

Or the car continues the trend of keeping the tyre temperature in affordable levels.

[Badger]

Strange that McLaren too a wide range of tyre compounds with them, but still keep running on intermediates on a dry track

Could this be because of the track temperature?

No. They just use these for install laps because they likely won't need them later.