2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[dia6olo]

@Emag, Scarbs says the Mclaren is more interesting than the Mercedes

Also talks about the team with the faster car likely changing multiple times, suggests the Mclaren might have the edge on the Mercedes

These people know about as much as we do which is very little to nothing.
OK, maybe a little bit more than that but they don't really know, just like most posters they are influenced by how the teams performed yesterday. In McLarens case 2024 & 2025, in Mercede's case they are still stuck with it's "Mercedes" & the 2014 PU advantage, with Ferrari, well it's "Ferrari" & with Red Bull, Well it's "Max".

All they know is pretty much what we have all seen in testing, that is that the big 4 still appear to be the front runners.
Opinions on how they compare to each other are mostly based on biases & not facts.
We will only really get a real picture of the pecking order and the gaps after maybe 3 race weekends.

[f1Follower]

Do we know how much overweight is McLaren car to the minimum weight?

[Macklaren]

Do we know how much overweight is McLaren car to the minimum weight?

based on vibes, I would expect them to be at or slightly above the min weight in Melbourne once the new parts are in. It is also interesting that Rob Marshall has been downplaying the negatives from the car being overweight in the media so maybe its not a big deal?

[the EDGE]

Do we know how much overweight is McLaren car to the minimum weight?

based on vibes, I would expect them to be at or slightly above the min weight in Melbourne once the new parts are in. It is also interesting that Rob Marshall has been downplaying the negatives from the car being overweight in the media so maybe its not a big deal?

In what media? I've not seen or read any comments about McLaren being either over or underweight, from either the team or the media

The closet it's come is Stella saying that McLaren had some weight saving coming to Australia, but he then went on to say that even when a car is underweight you still look for savings so you can increase the ballast for balance purposes

[Macklaren]

Do we know how much overweight is McLaren car to the minimum weight?

based on vibes, I would expect them to be at or slightly above the min weight in Melbourne once the new parts are in. It is also interesting that Rob Marshall has been downplaying the negatives from the car being overweight in the media so maybe its not a big deal?

In what media? I've not seen or read any comments about McLaren being either over or underweight, from either the team or the media

The closet it's come is Stella saying that McLaren had some weight saving coming to Australia, but he then went on to say that even when a car is underweight you still look for savings so you can increase the ballast for balance purposes

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... -williams/

In Formula 1, the rule of thumb is that ten kilograms translates to roughly three-tenths of a second per lap. That's a massive disadvantage – one might think. "I think people are too fixated on the weight," says McLaren's chief designer Rob Marshall, taking a different view.

In the long run, other aspects take priority: "The most important thing is to own a car you want," Marshall is convinced, but he cautions: "If the car is too heavy, you know it's going to cost you a certain number of tenths of a second per lap. You have to accept that." The lap times in Bahrain weren't yet conclusive enough. However, McLaren seems poised to be in contention for victories once again, even if Mercedes and Ferrari are still a step ahead, as Stella believes.

[mwillems]

@Emag, Scarbs says the Mclaren is more interesting than the Mercedes

Also talks about the team with the faster car likely changing multiple times, suggests the Mclaren might have the edge on the Mercedes

These people know about as much as we do which is very little to nothing.
OK, maybe a little bit more than that but they don't really know, just like most posters they are influenced by how the teams performed yesterday. In McLarens case 2024 & 2025, in Mercede's case they are still stuck with it's "Mercedes" & the 2014 PU advantage, with Ferrari, well it's "Ferrari" & with Red Bull, Well it's "Max".

All they know is pretty much what we have all seen in testing, that is that the big 4 still appear to be the front runners.
Opinions on how they compare to each other are mostly based on biases & not facts.
We will only really get a real picture of the pecking order and the gaps after maybe 3 race weekends.

Indeed, there is no way to know, but it wasnt posted for that reason. But I expect Scarbs knows a lot more than most in here and knows folks in the teams. Naturally his opinion carries a little weight.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

@Emag, Scarbs says the Mclaren is more interesting than the Mercedes

Also talks about the team with the faster car likely changing multiple times, suggests the Mclaren might have the edge on the Mercedes

These people know about as much as we do which is very little to nothing.
OK, maybe a little bit more than that but they don't really know, just like most posters they are influenced by how the teams performed yesterday. In McLarens case 2024 & 2025, in Mercede's case they are still stuck with it's "Mercedes" & the 2014 PU advantage, with Ferrari, well it's "Ferrari" & with Red Bull, Well it's "Max".

All they know is pretty much what we have all seen in testing, that is that the big 4 still appear to be the front runners.
Opinions on how they compare to each other are mostly based on biases & not facts.
We will only really get a real picture of the pecking order and the gaps after maybe 3 race weekends.

Always makes me laugh when The Race bring out their technical expert.....who hasn't worked in F1 for over 2 decades and has shown time and time again that he's just guessing a lot of the time!!

[dia6olo]

Also talks about the team with the faster car likely changing multiple times, suggests the Mclaren might have the edge on the Mercedes

These people know about as much as we do which is very little to nothing.
OK, maybe a little bit more than that but they don't really know, just like most posters they are influenced by how the teams performed yesterday. In McLarens case 2024 & 2025, in Mercede's case they are still stuck with it's "Mercedes" & the 2014 PU advantage, with Ferrari, well it's "Ferrari" & with Red Bull, Well it's "Max".

All they know is pretty much what we have all seen in testing, that is that the big 4 still appear to be the front runners.
Opinions on how they compare to each other are mostly based on biases & not facts.
We will only really get a real picture of the pecking order and the gaps after maybe 3 race weekends.

Indeed, there is no way to know, but it wasnt posted for that reason. But I expect Scarbs knows a lot more than most in here and knows folks in the teams. Naturally his opinion carries a little weight.

I'm aware it wasn't posted for that reason & if my reply read as such it wasn't meant to.
What I will say is that I remember very clearly reading Scarbs opinion after testing in 2022 and him looking very foolish with some of his analysis once the season started.

Ultimately most of these articles/videos are click bait.
They make some valid points here and there and there’s some truths here and there but as usual they have a tendency to extrapolate and somehow turn 2 + 2 into something that doesn’t equal 4 depending on the team.
And just for the record this isn’t a pop at Scarbs perse because they pretty much all do it.
None of them know the finer points they just know like most of us that it looks like the big 4 are still going to be the big 4.

[Emag]

These people know about as much as we do which is very little to nothing.
OK, maybe a little bit more than that but they don't really know, just like most posters they are influenced by how the teams performed yesterday. In McLarens case 2024 & 2025, in Mercede's case they are still stuck with it's "Mercedes" & the 2014 PU advantage, with Ferrari, well it's "Ferrari" & with Red Bull, Well it's "Max".

All they know is pretty much what we have all seen in testing, that is that the big 4 still appear to be the front runners.
Opinions on how they compare to each other are mostly based on biases & not facts.
We will only really get a real picture of the pecking order and the gaps after maybe 3 race weekends.

Indeed, there is no way to know, but it wasnt posted for that reason. But I expect Scarbs knows a lot more than most in here and knows folks in the teams. Naturally his opinion carries a little weight.

I'm aware it wasn't posted for that reason & if my reply read as such it wasn't meant to.
What I will say is that I remember very clearly reading Scarbs opinion after testing in 2022 and him looking very foolish with some of his analysis once the season started.

Ultimately most of these articles/videos are click bait.
They make some valid points here and there and there’s some truths here and there but as usual they have a tendency to extrapolate and somehow turn 2 + 2 into something that doesn’t equal 4 depending on the team.
And just for the record this isn’t a pop at Scarbs perse because they pretty much all do it.
None of them know the finer points they just know like most of us that it looks like the big 4 are still going to be the big 4.

Obviously in general the people who actually work in this business are interested in the clicks, so sometimes they are probably aware that there's not much (proper) value in the content they're putting out during this cloudy period where nobody knows where everyone stands. But if they didn't at least try to cover it, they're just missing out on that (relatively) little traffic the fanatics generate during this period.

Scarbs is a great technical person in the scene though. The predictions might not always stick, because they're just that, predictions. However when it comes to spotting details and explaining them to a more general audience I generally quite like Scarbs and it's one of my favorite people to follow for such things.

[mwillems]

Yep, agreed. It was more to counter some of the opinions in here, so more to demonstrate the wider array of views between knowledgeable people.

I've been echoing the thoughts around any real lack of understanding when it comes to relative performance.