2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

Anyone saw if Norris wing collapsed in the last sector? First two was personal best but was yellow in the last, and the wing hanging on the start/finish line.

Good eye. Could have been P3.

[Darth-Piekus]

So did his wing collapsed at the end? And what about Piastri? He lost a huge amount at the last part while he was close to the first two parts.

[Slahinki]

First qualifying of the new regulations, and they have to lift and coast during push laps because the PU can't even sustain one, singular push lap without running out of energy. What a mess of a PU regulation. The cars look much better and more "racy" than in a long time, but it's all being let down by the horrid PU regs. Hopefully McLaren can claw back that deficit to Mercedes before they build too huge of a buffer.

[avantman]

Anyone knows if there were deployment issues on both Mclarens? Zak Brown said something about it.

Toto made sure his engineers would find a way to hold his Nb. 1 rivals back( just like the rest of the clients). Finally, I mean enough is enough.
And the more complicated the whole harvesting/deployment formula is, the easier it is it hide things.

[FittingMechanics]

It is not a defiency of the PU. It is a feature. You can't have 350 kW motor and only a 4MJ battery but allow to use 8MJ per lap.

[avantman]

It is not a defiency of the PU. It is a feature. You can't have 350 kW motor and only a 4MJ battery but allow to use 8MJ per lap.

They were allowed to use only 7 today in Qualifying by the way. Otherwise Mercedes PU advantage would have likely been even bigger.

[Darth-Piekus]

Anyone knows if there were deployment issues on both Mclarens? Zak Brown said something about it.

Toto made sure his engineers would find a way to hold his Nb. 1 rivals back( just like the rest of the clients). Finally, I mean enough is enough.
And the more complicated the whole harvesting/deployment formula is, the easier it is it hide things.

I see. So as expected Mercedes would find a way to get the upper hand on these rules and would hide something from the client teams. Oh well. On to the development.

[SilviuAgo]

Anyone saw if Norris wing collapsed in the last sector? First two was personal best but was yellow in the last, and the wing hanging on the start/finish line.

You'll have your answer in this video. That decision to put tape on the FW was a joke:



Lando was a moving spark all the second half of the track

[Darth-Piekus]

Lando was very unlucky then. Who knows how much time he lost from all that. Is it possible though that they didnt have another FW? And anyone has Piastri's lap? He seems to have lost a lot of time somewhere.

[mwillems]

Yes, I looked at that and thought Mclaren could easily be 2nd fastest. But it's still all heavily masked. Definately feels like we'll be fighting at the pointy end.

The consistency or Merc's runs showing that they haven't really stretched their legs.

I think this is true, we are fighting for second, though Verstappen and Red Bull may get that spot after the Mercs.

I'm excited to see development, but it looks like a big battle to catch Merc.

[SilviuAgo]

So did his wing collapsed at the end? And what about Piastri? He lost a huge amount at the last part while he was close to the first two parts.

Before and after:

[Darth-Piekus]

I still think Mclaren could have gone 2nd after Mercedes. Norris lost a lot of time from that damaged wing and floor(lets not forget the floor from practise) and Piastri may have had deployment issues but I havent seen his lap to know if that was the case or if there was a mistake.

I will agree that its not a good start and terrible regulations and that Mercedes might be hiding something from its clients but lets see how development goes.

[SilviuAgo]

I still think Mclaren could have gone 2nd after Mercedes. Norris lost a lot of time from that damaged wing and floor(lets not forget the floor from practise) and Piastri may have had deployment issues but I havent seen his lap to know if that was the case or if there was a mistake.

I will agree that its not a good start and terrible regulations and that Mercedes might be hiding something from its clients but lets see how development goes.

Sometimes Zak is like IT support, to fix something just turn off and back on the device

zak: “[for lando] we’ve actually got some deployment issues there that we can’t quite get to the bottom of … it’s a little bit like ‘turn it on and turn it off’ and see if it fixes itself”

[AR3-GP]

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[Slahinki]

It is not a defiency of the PU. It is a feature. You can't have 350 kW motor and only a 4MJ battery but allow to use 8MJ per lap.

And certainly not while simultaneously cutting power allowed from the ICU by a third or what it is. These PU regulations are fundamentally broken. It has been talked about for years, but now we can see it with our own eyes.