2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[the EDGE]

More over, what would be the point of any team using the wrong fuel for these engines? They're designed to be run on the 100% sustainable fuel, there would be no benefit to Mercedes, for example, doing 500 laps using the wrong fuel.

They would risk turning up to Bahrain and suddenly having issues.

There are definitely murmurings of teams using standard fuel for testing but I can’t find anything concrete to confirm either way. The reason teams would use not use the bio-fuel for testing would be cost. Mercedes did 500+ laps, at 2ltrs a lap, and £200 a litre, that’s a £200,000+ fuel bill.

Does Shakedown/Testing come out of the budget cap?

How is the cost worked out? Because obviously Petronas is title sponsor for Merc, so are McLaren going to be paying for something Merc get for free??

For this year, at least, fuel costs will not be included in the budget cap, at all

Including any testing and races

[Ground Effect]

Every year we're told in pre-season testing that times are irrelevant and it's a waste of time to predict a pecking order, but what do the "experts" do almost immediately? Draw up a pecking order. It's actually fascinating that, even during the 2025 season, Mercedes were already declared favourites, by virtue of their rumoured superior engine. Added to their practically perfect Barcelona shakedown, it's now gospel. I'm also surprised how much McLaren is being overlooked though, 2 time defending WCC's and defending WDC. I hope the team can spring a surprise in Melbourne.

[Emag]

Every year we're told in pre-season testing that times are irrelevant and it's a waste of time to predict a pecking order, but what do the "experts" do almost immediately? Draw up a pecking order. It's actually fascinating that, even during the 2025 season, Mercedes were already declared favourites, by virtue of their rumoured superior engine. Added to their practically perfect Barcelona shakedown, it's now gospel. I'm also surprised how much McLaren is being overlooked though, 2 time defending WCC's and defending WDC. I hope the team can spring a surprise in Melbourne.

Engine rumors don't leak out of nothing. When they come in advance like this, it's usually sources within the teams that just make the way into the public. We knew Mercedes was going to have a great engine in 2014 too, we just didn't know how great.

Also, McLaren are not being overlooked, people are just being reasonably "pessimistic". They had the least amount of wind tunnel hours to develop this car and they've also just recently made a re-entry to the top scene. They haven't proven yet they can consistently be there regardless of regulations.

But more than McLaren being played down, it's Mercedes who is taking the spotlight and I think it's with good reason. This ground effect era they were completely lost, but now we are going back into slightly more familiar territory for Mercedes with these cars resembling more what we had pre 2022. An era which Mercedes utterly dominated even when they lost the power unit monopoly.

[organic]

Every year we're told in pre-season testing that times are irrelevant and it's a waste of time to predict a pecking order, but what do the "experts" do almost immediately? Draw up a pecking order. It's actually fascinating that, even during the 2025 season, Mercedes were already declared favourites, by virtue of their rumoured superior engine. Added to their practically perfect Barcelona shakedown, it's now gospel. I'm also surprised how much McLaren is being overlooked though, 2 time defending WCC's and defending WDC. I hope the team can spring a surprise in Melbourne.

The expected pecking order from the media is based on a bit more than just laptimes.

[venkyhere]

I wonder if they plan to assess if this concept is the right path before deciding how much development time they will spend, or where they will develop.

That was pretty clearly what Marshall was implying. They want to evaluate this concept, this car and competitors and then see where they will spend their budget and CFD time.

This could result in the team being slow to bring updates but once they bring them, it should offer them a bigger jump in performance.

Once again, McLaren doing things slightly differently to other teams.

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum, but yes, I had the same impression, McLaren in my opinion is starting with a very basic car, this doesn't mean slow but that it will be predictable as a window of use and easy to correlate. In my opinion, as soon as they realize which concept is the best, they will go and simulate it in the gallery that is said to have the yaw angles.

I have the opposite opinion. McLaren seem to have the most 'finished' car of the entire grid. Looking at the renders I thought 'no way that's going to be real' because it looked 'extreme'. And then I saw how the real thing matched the render, and that's when I knew that Mclaren (front wing, the 'K' on front suspension wishbones, the massive undercut and the 'solid'-ish inwashing bargeboard, the super aggressive floor front strakes) have indeed found a way to come up with an 'extreme' solution that works (the amount of vortices that the front wing alone is shedding, is mental).

[De Wet]

I wonder if they plan to assess if this concept is the right path before deciding how much development time they will spend, or where they will develop.

That was pretty clearly what Marshall was implying. They want to evaluate this concept, this car and competitors and then see where they will spend their budget and CFD time.

This could result in the team being slow to bring updates but once they bring them, it should offer them a bigger jump in performance.

Once again, McLaren doing things slightly differently to other teams.

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum, but yes, I had the same impression, McLaren in my opinion is starting with a very basic car, this doesn't mean slow but that it will be predictable as a window of use and easy to correlate. In my opinion, as soon as they realize which concept is the best, they will go and simulate it in the gallery that is said to have the yaw angles.

Welcome and Enjoy.

[De Wet]

That was pretty clearly what Marshall was implying. They want to evaluate this concept, this car and competitors and then see where they will spend their budget and CFD time.

This could result in the team being slow to bring updates but once they bring them, it should offer them a bigger jump in performance.

Once again, McLaren doing things slightly differently to other teams.

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum, but yes, I had the same impression, McLaren in my opinion is starting with a very basic car, this doesn't mean slow but that it will be predictable as a window of use and easy to correlate. In my opinion, as soon as they realize which concept is the best, they will go and simulate it in the gallery that is said to have the yaw angles.

I have the opposite opinion. McLaren seem to have the most 'finished' car of the entire grid. Looking at the renders I thought 'no way that's going to be real' because it looked 'extreme'. And then I saw how the real thing matched the render, and that's when I knew that Mclaren (front wing, the 'K' on front suspension wishbones, the massive undercut and the 'solid'-ish inwashing bargeboard, the super aggressive floor front strakes) have indeed found a way to come up with an 'extreme' solution that works (the amount of vortices that the front wing alone is shedding, is mental).

I agree.

[Ground Effect]

Every year we're told in pre-season testing that times are irrelevant and it's a waste of time to predict a pecking order, but what do the "experts" do almost immediately? Draw up a pecking order. It's actually fascinating that, even during the 2025 season, Mercedes were already declared favourites, by virtue of their rumoured superior engine. Added to their practically perfect Barcelona shakedown, it's now gospel. I'm also surprised how much McLaren is being overlooked though, 2 time defending WCC's and defending WDC. I hope the team can spring a surprise in Melbourne.

Engine rumors don't leak out of nothing. When they come in advance like this, it's usually sources within the teams that just make the way into the public. We knew Mercedes was going to have a great engine in 2014 too, we just didn't know how great.

Also, McLaren are not being overlooked, people are just being reasonably "pessimistic". They had the least amount of wind tunnel hours to develop this car and they've also just recently made a re-entry to the top scene. They haven't proven yet they can consistently be there regardless of regulations.

But more than McLaren being played down, it's Mercedes who is taking the spotlight and I think it's with good reason. This ground effect era they were completely lost, but now we are going back into slightly more familiar territory for Mercedes with these cars resembling more what we had pre 2022. An era which Mercedes utterly dominated even when they lost the power unit monopoly.

Agreed, buy McLaren is using the same engine, also McLaren is in much better shape than they were pre ground effect era, with better facilities and better people. It's fine though, I guess flying under the radar isn't a bad thing.

[AR3-GP]

The pecking order predictions are a snapshot in time. We don't know what teams will unlock between now and Australia, and what upgrades are to come.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

The prediction video that made me laugh most was Kym Illman, who recorded it before the Shakedown. Some of his were already looking wide of the mark lol

[mwillems]

That was pretty clearly what Marshall was implying. They want to evaluate this concept, this car and competitors and then see where they will spend their budget and CFD time.

This could result in the team being slow to bring updates but once they bring them, it should offer them a bigger jump in performance.

Once again, McLaren doing things slightly differently to other teams.

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum, but yes, I had the same impression, McLaren in my opinion is starting with a very basic car, this doesn't mean slow but that it will be predictable as a window of use and easy to correlate. In my opinion, as soon as they realize which concept is the best, they will go and simulate it in the gallery that is said to have the yaw angles.

I have the opposite opinion. McLaren seem to have the most 'finished' car of the entire grid. Looking at the renders I thought 'no way that's going to be real' because it looked 'extreme'. And then I saw how the real thing matched the render, and that's when I knew that Mclaren (front wing, the 'K' on front suspension wishbones, the massive undercut and the 'solid'-ish inwashing bargeboard, the super aggressive floor front strakes) have indeed found a way to come up with an 'extreme' solution that works (the amount of vortices that the front wing alone is shedding, is mental).

Seems to have been a strong focus on platform fundamentals and the front does indeed look particularly developed.

I have no idea if it is fast, but I like the car.

[FittingMechanics]

I really like the look of the car. At first it looked simple but with the higher resolution shots you can see it's quite developed, with many small important details. It is also very slim, I have the impression most commenters don't really notice that.

I'm wondering, could their big front wing mean they are really trying to use "two state" situation of the front wing, intentionally designing the car to work well with two different aero states. If the FW backs off significantly McLaren aero changes will be much larger than the likes of Mercedes or Aston.

[mwillems]

Every year we're told in pre-season testing that times are irrelevant and it's a waste of time to predict a pecking order, but what do the "experts" do almost immediately? Draw up a pecking order. It's actually fascinating that, even during the 2025 season, Mercedes were already declared favourites, by virtue of their rumoured superior engine. Added to their practically perfect Barcelona shakedown, it's now gospel. I'm also surprised how much McLaren is being overlooked though, 2 time defending WCC's and defending WDC. I hope the team can spring a surprise in Melbourne.

The expected pecking order from the media is based on a bit more than just laptimes.

True. But it's hard to forget Toto predicting after the 24 tests a tight battle with Mclaren.

Before our first upgrade package we sat on over 120 points, about double of Merc, 5 races in.

[Ground Effect]

Every year we're told in pre-season testing that times are irrelevant and it's a waste of time to predict a pecking order, but what do the "experts" do almost immediately? Draw up a pecking order. It's actually fascinating that, even during the 2025 season, Mercedes were already declared favourites, by virtue of their rumoured superior engine. Added to their practically perfect Barcelona shakedown, it's now gospel. I'm also surprised how much McLaren is being overlooked though, 2 time defending WCC's and defending WDC. I hope the team can spring a surprise in Melbourne.

The expected pecking order from the media is based on a bit more than just laptimes.

True. But it's hard to forget Toto predicting after the 24 tests a tight battle with Mclaren.

Before our first upgrade package we sat on over 120 points, about double of Merc, 5 races in.

James Allison actually said Mercedes were ahead of McLaren. I remember seeing that.

[Emag]

The expected pecking order from the media is based on a bit more than just laptimes.

True. But it's hard to forget Toto predicting after the 24 tests a tight battle with Mclaren.

Before our first upgrade package we sat on over 120 points, about double of Merc, 5 races in.

James Allison actually said Mercedes were ahead of McLaren. I remember seeing that.

To be fair to them, 24 winter testing was a bit hard to read. We knew RedBull was strong, but we weren't sure if Ferrari was on par with them or not. Also behind, McLaren didn't show impressive long runs so they were putting Mercedes, McLaren, Aston together.

Of course Mercedes turned out to be an inconsistent dog that year, but I guess it's a fair point. You shouldn't put too much faith in Mercedes' arrogance.