2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[CjC]

McLaren are running the same power unit as Mercedes, who put theirs to good use in recording a 1-2 to start the season in style. Stella admitted that Mercedes are also quicker in the corners, with the Woking-based squad needing to understand how they are losing that crucial time.

“Develop the car,” Stella stated as McLaren's main objective now. “This will take a few races, in terms of seeing some major upgrades that can allow us to change a bit the category for which we compete. Therefore, I think in these few initial races, we will have to make sure that we extract most of the car in its current configuration.”

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... PmBb164krT

Another "Miami update"?

Depending on what happens in the Middle East, Miami might be the next opportunity they get to bring an update.

[Badger]

Sure you do, if the car has lower power you’ll need to deploy for longer to reach those same top speeds in a reasonable time. Besides, having too much deployment is far better than whatever we have now.

But the cars are not slowed down by the drag when purely on ICE power. They are slowed down when they start to super clip (meaning their ICE is cut from 400 to 150 KW) or when they are LiCo harvesting (negative 350 kW).

If LiCo and superclipping was banned and only thing they could do was brake to recover, there would be no problem if they used 350 kW power of 250 kW or 150 kW. Only difference would be that the higher the power, sooner they reach higher speeds and cross over to ICE power only.

If you lower the power, you slow down the cars and make them easier to drive.

If they had to regen everything with the brakes they'd just massively extend the braking zone and we'd get more or less the same effect we already have. What needs to happen is a reduction to the total energy harvested per lap.

[FittingMechanics]

Sure you do, if the car has lower power you’ll need to deploy for longer to reach those same top speeds in a reasonable time. Besides, having too much deployment is far better than whatever we have now.

But the cars are not slowed down by the drag when purely on ICE power. They are slowed down when they start to super clip (meaning their ICE is cut from 400 to 150 KW) or when they are LiCo harvesting (negative 350 kW).

If LiCo and superclipping was banned and only thing they could do was brake to recover, there would be no problem if they used 350 kW power of 250 kW or 150 kW. Only difference would be that the higher the power, sooner they reach higher speeds and cross over to ICE power only.

If you lower the power, you slow down the cars and make them easier to drive.

If they had to regen everything with the brakes they'd just massively extend the braking zone and we'd get more or less the same effect we already have. What needs to happen is a reduction to the total energy harvested per lap.

You could work around that, either by connecting amount they can recharge with the brake pressure (so you can't just slightly brake and recover 350 kW) or even by reducing the recharge limit to a number that is doable normally.

[CjC]

I expected them to be closer not this far behind. Didn't say they had to be Mercedes. There will be some baked in works advantage that Mercedes will enjoy when engines change.

For what its worth, 21 to 22 is misleading as two teams fought every race and one of them with equal resources did manage to transition just fine.

Also 21-22 is the most useful reference as that's the latest proper one under the budget cap.

I am not sure if anyone at McLaren is happy where they are right now.

Can’t believe my reply has only just dawned on me.

If we can only look at 21-22 then, it has many similarities to what we have seen 25-26.
Mercedes the winning constructor in 2021 dropped to the back of the leading pack in 2022, like McLaren just have.
Then the 2 teams who finished P2 and P3 in 2021 ended up being the 2 top teams early in the 2022 season, the caveat now is that there are 4 top teams but the 2 who went for the title in 2025 are the 2 teams trailing the other 2 teams from the top 4 who didn’t duel it out for the title in 2025.

Mclaren or their fans won’t be happy with their current competitive situation however some fans will agree with me that this situation isn’t surprising considering that it’s very rare for a championship winning team from one rule set go into the next set as favourites.

There is nothing to suggest Mclaren will recover- they may never do, if they slip back into the midfield then any criticism sent their way will then be valid.

Red Bull and Mercedes went neck to neck in 2021. The WCC could have swung the other way if not for unfortunate incidents on the track. I hope you are not being intentionally disingenuous here.

I think it's actually pretty surprising really that McLaren chassis is worse than what I expected. I obviously expected them to be at least as good as Mercedes.

Granted, there could be a much bigger snowball effect here because of Mercedes playing games with their customers.

McLaren had the constructors done by race 10 last year and had shifted all resources to 2026 by their own admission as they wanted to "keep winning in the future" and that's why they didn't bring late season upgrades (they couldn't find extra lap time either but anyways this was the official company line).

I just think Emag's theory checks out. Something must have gone wrong or what I am seeing doesn't make sense.

No i’m not, are you?

Merc came out on top in 2021 so would have been handicapped by the ATR through 21, effecting development for 22.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... jbNRbdYx8a

Did Red Bull ever lead the WCC for a significant period during that season to handicap their ATR? I can’t remember.

As Basti said and I agreed, Merc looks like it has a significant cooling advantage over McLaren as well. Another works team perk at the beginning of a new regulation set.

Lastly, Mclaren did switch off 2025 development rather early, it was a concern that they couldn’t find much more lap time back then and it’s disappointing that there aren’t better now.

Comparing McLaren and Red Bull now is it no surprise that they are adrift of Merc and Ferrari. McLaren had the highest ATR handicap, Red Bull could have spent the same amount of allowance on the 26 car as McLaren did and the extra allowance they had over McLaren they spent on developing the 25 car to get Max in the fight?

[Badger]

But the cars are not slowed down by the drag when purely on ICE power. They are slowed down when they start to super clip (meaning their ICE is cut from 400 to 150 KW) or when they are LiCo harvesting (negative 350 kW).

If LiCo and superclipping was banned and only thing they could do was brake to recover, there would be no problem if they used 350 kW power of 250 kW or 150 kW. Only difference would be that the higher the power, sooner they reach higher speeds and cross over to ICE power only.

If you lower the power, you slow down the cars and make them easier to drive.

If they had to regen everything with the brakes they'd just massively extend the braking zone and we'd get more or less the same effect we already have. What needs to happen is a reduction to the total energy harvested per lap.

You could work around that, either by connecting amount they can recharge with the brake pressure (so you can't just slightly brake and recover 350 kW) or even by reducing the recharge limit to a number that is doable normally.

Just lower it from 8 MJ instead, much easier.

[f1isgood]

Can’t believe my reply has only just dawned on me.

If we can only look at 21-22 then, it has many similarities to what we have seen 25-26.
Mercedes the winning constructor in 2021 dropped to the back of the leading pack in 2022, like McLaren just have.
Then the 2 teams who finished P2 and P3 in 2021 ended up being the 2 top teams early in the 2022 season, the caveat now is that there are 4 top teams but the 2 who went for the title in 2025 are the 2 teams trailing the other 2 teams from the top 4 who didn’t duel it out for the title in 2025.

Mclaren or their fans won’t be happy with their current competitive situation however some fans will agree with me that this situation isn’t surprising considering that it’s very rare for a championship winning team from one rule set go into the next set as favourites.

There is nothing to suggest Mclaren will recover- they may never do, if they slip back into the midfield then any criticism sent their way will then be valid.

Red Bull and Mercedes went neck to neck in 2021. The WCC could have swung the other way if not for unfortunate incidents on the track. I hope you are not being intentionally disingenuous here.

I think it's actually pretty surprising really that McLaren chassis is worse than what I expected. I obviously expected them to be at least as good as Mercedes.

Granted, there could be a much bigger snowball effect here because of Mercedes playing games with their customers.

McLaren had the constructors done by race 10 last year and had shifted all resources to 2026 by their own admission as they wanted to "keep winning in the future" and that's why they didn't bring late season upgrades (they couldn't find extra lap time either but anyways this was the official company line).

I just think Emag's theory checks out. Something must have gone wrong or what I am seeing doesn't make sense.

No i’m not, are you?

Merc came out on top in 2021 so would have been handicapped by the ATR through 21, effecting development for 22.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... jbNRbdYx8a

Did Red Bull ever lead the WCC for a significant period during that season to handicap their ATR? I can’t remember.

As Basti said and I agreed, Merc looks like it has a significant cooling advantage over McLaren as well. Another works team perk at the beginning of a new regulation set.

Comparing McLaren and Red Bull now is it no surprise that they are adrift of Merc and Ferrari. McLaren had the highest ATR handicap, Red Bull could have spent the same amount of allowance on the 26 car as McLaren did and the extra allowance they had over McLaren they spent on developing the 25 car to get Max in the fight?

Red Bull were the WCC leaders going into July 2021. My original post already addresses this. Both Mercedes and Red Bull had equal resources.

Red Bull's technical team got shown up by McLaren's team the last couple of years. After all, they are not the behemoth they were a couple of years ago given the staff attrition. I am not surprised Red Bull aren't at the top. McLaren were expected to be at the top as far as I was concerned. To me ATR is a bad excuse. Something went wrong somewhere.


Lastly, Mclaren did switch off 2025 development rather early, it was a concern that they couldn’t find much more lap time back then and it’s disappointing that there aren’t better now.


Yes, all I am saying is I expected more of McLaren. You can give many theories as to why they are bad but reality is they should be better than Mercedes from a chassis perspective if you had normal expectations going into this year. Sure, with the benefit of hindsight and Mercedes not giving their customers equal PUs is a big surprise but that still doesn't mean McLaren's chassis is right now good.

I am not sure Stella wanted to start this year behind as he naturally wanted to keep winning titles.

[Fred]

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... r-mercedes

Seems like Mercedes deliberately held back information from customer teams on energy recovery. Stella isn’t particularly happy, and he along with Vowels were shocked by the energy recovery of the factory team. Plus side is that it seems like that’s the main source of the gap between us and Mercedes, but Stella still thinks it’ll take a bit to catch, especially if Toto keeps being Toto.

[SilviuAgo]

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... r-mercedes

Seems like Mercedes deliberately held back information from customer teams on energy recovery. Stella isn’t particularly happy, and he along with Vowels were shocked by the energy recovery of the factory team. Plus side is that it seems like that’s the main source of the gap between us and Mercedes, but Stella still thinks it’ll take a bit to catch, especially if Toto keeps being Toto.

The discussion about engines is understandable at this stage. Everything is new—some understand more, others less—but over time, things will level out. We will eventually end up in the same position as in recent years, where the difference is made by innovations (front wing, suspension geometry, rear wing dynamics, sidepods, bargeboards, tire wear, etc.).

Many say McLaren shouldn't comment since they won two titles with a Mercedes engine. True, but in 2022, when the new regulations were introduced, the engines were already nearing maturity. In 2024 and 2025, when McLaren won their titles, it wasn't the engine that made the difference, but the aero package, the front suspension geometry in particular, and McLaren's ability to manage tire wear near its maximum capacity.

Now, it’s normal for Toto to try and keep as much of the Mercedes engine's potential under wraps as possible. Sure, McLaren, Williams, and Alpine pay tens of millions of euros for these engines, but Mercedes needs to build a sufficient lead in the first part of the season to ensure they maximize their title chances. Given the development rate of McLaren and Red Bull, this seems like the only real chance for Russell (and Mercedes) to win the titles in 2026.

McLaren has tried having their own engines before—we all remember the Honda era from 2015-2017—but they went through exactly what Aston Martin is experiencing now.

On the other hand, we have the example of Red Bull this year, who achieved what many thought impossible: having an 'in-house' engine almost as high-performing as Ferrari or Mercedes, teams with decades of experience in this field. So, if Zak wants something unique, as someone mentioned a few pages back, he could take over the engineers and facilities abandoned by Renault, reach deep into his pockets for other top engineers from rivals, and perhaps with the support of BMW or VW, create an engine exclusively for McLaren.

[bauc]

What’s the situation with Mercedes PU and what they supply to customers guys?

Can someone explain it simply to me?

Is it correct that all teams now have the latest spec engine? But that in testing only the Merc works team had it, so spent 6 days optimising it and mapping it whilst the customers worked with the original spec.

Is it not the duty of the HPP partners to support McLaren and other customers to extract the best from it?

It just feels a bit like that hollow 2014 reg reset if there are fans being played, which would disappoint me as someone who wants to see genuine competition.

It’s likely to take several race weekends for customers to really get to grips with the PU right?

PU final version was homologated week before this first race, so from Race 1, Mercedes is to provide the same spec engine to its customer teams, but prior to that, in preseason testing, they were not obliged to, so all of the mapings and setting Mclaren and others have used in preseason basically are off/not the best match for the latest spec of the PU, so in a way it was a blow under the belt from Mercedes, but it is to be expected, I think the team will need 3-4 race weekends to full understand how to map and operate the new PU, which puts Mercedes in a HUGE advantage, but this is how things are, its nobody fault that we do not produce our own PU.

Thank you

It’s a bit hollow if you ask me. If I want to be the best by beating the best, I’d want my customer competitors to have access to all the same tools.

It’s 2014 all over again.

Sure, it’s not breaking rules. But spirit of competition?

A lot of money is paid to access these engines, I hope we see greater cooperation from HPP, for all customers.

Yes I agree, but the rules say they (Mercedes) need to provide the same tools and equipment to their customer teams, it does not say they need to teach them how to best use/exploit those

[Darth-Piekus]

Silviu let me correct you on that one. It wasn't just Red Bull that made the engine. It was a cooperation between Red Bull and Ford because Red Bull was unable to do that by themselves as they admitted on their own site. But I agree that they are performing much better than Honda.

[f1Follower]

PU final version was homologated week before this first race, so from Race 1, Mercedes is to provide the same spec engine to its customer teams, but prior to that, in preseason testing, they were not obliged to, so all of the mapings and setting Mclaren and others have used in preseason basically are off/not the best match for the latest spec of the PU, so in a way it was a blow under the belt from Mercedes, but it is to be expected, I think the team will need 3-4 race weekends to full understand how to map and operate the new PU, which puts Mercedes in a HUGE advantage, but this is how things are, its nobody fault that we do not produce our own PU.

Thank you

It’s a bit hollow if you ask me. If I want to be the best by beating the best, I’d want my customer competitors to have access to all the same tools.

It’s 2014 all over again.

Sure, it’s not breaking rules. But spirit of competition?

A lot of money is paid to access these engines, I hope we see greater cooperation from HPP, for all customers.

Yes I agree, but the rules say they (Mercedes) need to provide the same tools and equipment to their customer teams, it does not say they need to teach them how to best use/exploit those

Earlier Mercedes has party mode mostly for quali. Was that mode also for the customer teams?

[FittingMechanics]

Earlier Mercedes has party mode mostly for quali. Was that mode also for the customer teams?

In early domination years (2014+) they held back the strongest modes for themselves. In a podcast former Lotus boss told a story how Grosjean was allowed to use a special, much faster mode in order to catch Vettel. The car went 8 tenths faster and they were not allowed to use that mode in the future. So it looks like the PUs were capable of party mode but they weren't given the code to enter it.

https://www.f1oversteer.com/news/alpine ... wer-units/

[SilviuAgo]

Silviu let me correct you on that one. It wasn't just Red Bull that made the engine. It was a cooperation between Red Bull and Ford because Red Bull was unable to do that by themselves as they admitted on their own site. But I agree that they are performing much better than Honda.

This is true, is RBR with Ford, not something that RBR did alone. This was also my proposal to have an experienced partner like BMW, VW etc, to start the journey and to gather experience.

One question to older McLaren fans, I saw Zak talking about Race 1000 and that being Miami. Also McLaren start to do some promo but with focus on Miami. Based on my math and also some statistics sites, race in Australia was 996 (races started by a McLaren car). So mean the famous McLaren "race 1000" will be in Saudi, not in Miami.
I know the Americans are paying a lot of money and is nice from marketing perspective to use Miami for this special celebration, livery bla bla, but is as fake as the new F1 overtake records.
Is like McLaren should have celebrate the 200 win not in Hungary but in Brazil to have also a special Senna livery tribute (to 100 win also in Brazil by Ayrton). Or Lando not to celebrate the first world title in AbuDhabi but in Silverstone '26

[f1Follower]

Earlier Mercedes has party mode mostly for quali. Was that mode also for the customer teams?

In early domination years (2014+) they held back the strongest modes for themselves. In a podcast former Lotus boss told a story how Grosjean was allowed to use a special, much faster mode in order to catch Vettel. The car went 8 tenths faster and they were not allowed to use that mode in the future. So it looks like the PUs were capable of party mode but they weren't given the code to enter it.

https://www.f1oversteer.com/news/alpine ... wer-units/

So there is a slight chance of similar case for this era of regulation. Also since Mclaren won WCC twice last 2 seasons they may be having egg on their face as to giving their immediate rival their best product (a.k.a engine). There is very good chance that MB may not be sharing all the aspects of the engine and with engines legality still in question (compression ratio issue) MB will be keeping some information from customer teams

[FittingMechanics]

Silviu let me correct you on that one. It wasn't just Red Bull that made the engine. It was a cooperation between Red Bull and Ford because Red Bull was unable to do that by themselves as they admitted on their own site. But I agree that they are performing much better than Honda.

This is true, is RBR with Ford, not something that RBR did alone. This was also my proposal to have an experienced partner like BMW, VW etc, to start the journey and to gather experience.

One question to older McLaren fans, I saw Zak talking about Race 1000 and that being Miami. Also McLaren start to do some promo but with focus on Miami. Based on my math and also some statistics sites, race in Australia was 996 (races started by a McLaren car). So mean the famous McLaren "race 1000" will be in Saudi, not in Miami.

Maybe Zak knows Bahrain will be cancelled with Saudi GP going forward. It would mean Miami is really 1000th race.

But more likely that they will just celebrate 1000th in Miami, regardless of the number.