2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[mwillems]

I've deliberately stayed away until the formula settles, this place was always goes a bit bonkers when things aren't steady.

Season and regs were always going to take several races to settle in.

Mclaren look to be in a decent position. I hope we get 4th by seasons half and increase dev time.

[emp]

Stop with the conspiracy nonsense. Things like this happen and at the moment Mclaren is in no way a threat to Mercedes.

Use a little logic, please.

The logic that Mercedes didn’t release the final spec PU till the very last moment they had to?

Mclaren did the most laps of anyone in testing to then have a double DNS on the second weekend?
These are the issues teams should be solving on day 2 of testing not race 2.

Yes McLaren aren’t a threat now but the points lost early in the season probably won’t be recoverable at the end of the season if McLaren become the team to beat again.

Mercedes haven’t don’t anything wrong but they have given themselves a massive insurance policy against McLaren, the reigning back to back WCCs

There is a big difference between being petty and competitive but still complying with their contract and thinking that this is some big conspiracy to hinder the team who is 3rd best at the moment just because they may or may not outdevelop anyone based on last regulation cycle.

Following that logic, doesn't that mean that Mercedes just lucked their way into building a superior engine and chassis? Or that is also a conspiracy and they had help from outside? Or that only works when is your team at disadvantage?

Some people really have forgot that this is the big circus but that doesn't mean that there aren't incredibile people doing incredible good engineering here.

But from engineering to pushing buttons or delivering faulty engines or software to a client who has the means to sue them for billions and destroy them...pure nonsense like the flat earth or 5g chips in your blood or whatever the social media people are being stupid enough to believe these days.

[SilviuAgo]

At least Oscar sees the positive outcome, he went further in China than in Australia )))))



Now see you in Japan. If McLaren is able to start his cars. If not...see you in Miami.

[Ben1980]

I've deliberately stayed away until the formula settles, this place was always goes a bit bonkers when things aren't steady.

Season and regs were always going to take several races to settle in.

Mclaren look to be in a decent position. I hope we get 4th by seasons half and increase dev time.

I think they have to just start, go though the motions and will be 3rd in standings at present.

Starting being the main thing though.

[f1Follower]

[venkyhere]

Following that logic, doesn't that mean that Mercedes just lucked their way into building a superior engine and chassis? Or that is also a conspiracy and they had help from outside? Or that only works when is your team at disadvantage?

Mercedes helped define this formula, remember.
Plus, whatever they were doing in the development over the past few years, they 'submitted' things to FIA and 'got approval' (while other PU manufacturers were doing the same, but FIA never thought there was something cheeky being done by Mercedes), only for other teams to question FIA after 'rumours' starting popping out later ; which is when FIA decided to 'play the egalitarian' and came up with a 'new test' but still allowed Mercedes ('our engine is FIA approved') to run the illegal engine all the way until the summer break, 1/2 way into the season. There is absolutely no transparency about whether there is any actual physical testing as part of homologation or just 'CAD drawing approval'.
In times like these, that's when I remember - 'oh wait, this isn't really a 'sport' per se, this is just the annual competition within an engineering club, where they pay a fee to some 'adjudicator' to frame up the rules of competition and check compliance'. There is nothing anywhere that says the FIA are 'free from being influenced' & that the FIA have enough technical wherewithal to 'find/unhide' cheating. FIA discovers cheating or issues TDs only when member(s) of the automotive club rat each other out and put pressure on FIA to do so.

[Vettel165]

Feel bad for both of the drivers and the team. I am a big Red Bull-Max fan, but I know how are you fans feeling right now. We are in the same boat. Last 2 years were amazing, we had cool fights for the title in 2024, 2025... But now its all over.

[emp]

Following that logic, doesn't that mean that Mercedes just lucked their way into building a superior engine and chassis? Or that is also a conspiracy and they had help from outside? Or that only works when is your team at disadvantage?

Mercedes helped define this formula, remember.
Plus, whatever they were doing in the development over the past few years, they 'submitted' things to FIA and 'got approval' (while other PU manufacturers were doing the same, but FIA never thought there was something cheeky being done by Mercedes), only for other teams to question FIA after 'rumours' starting popping out later ; which is when FIA decided to 'play the egalitarian' and came up with a 'new test' but still allowed Mercedes ('our engine is FIA approved') to run the illegal engine all the way until the summer break, 1/2 way into the season. There is absolutely no transparency about whether there is any actual physical testing as part of homologation or just 'CAD drawing approval'.
In times like these, that's when I remember - 'oh wait, this isn't really a 'sport' per se, this is just the annual competition within an engineering club, where they pay a fee to some 'adjudicator' to frame up the rules of competition and check compliance'. There is nothing anywhere that says the FIA are 'free from being influenced' & that the FIA have enough technical wherewithal to 'find/unhide' cheating. FIA discovers cheating or issues TDs only when member(s) of the automotive club rat each other out and put pressure on FIA to do so.

So they followed all the legal proceedings and people are mad because they may have found a loophole which may or may not be legal but people can't prove it's illegal because they got the approval from the FIA and all the people have is rage bait and click bait on the internet?

If anything, people should be mad at the FIA and applaud Mercedes because they did the clever engineering. Like they should applaud (from a technical perspective, as we are on a technical forum and not on social media) the double diffuser or the F duct or the DAS or the fan car or the 2014 Mercedes engine and the examples may go on.

Instead, people applaud clever engineering only when it's their team that does it, which is hypocrisy at it's finest and not something expected on a technical forum.

[jacme22]

https://x.com/McLarenF1/status/2033151912145498186?s=20

Here and in post race article, they are clearly pointing at Mercedes for the issue. Maybe they are just incompetent.

[mwillems]

I've deliberately stayed away until the formula settles, this place was always goes a bit bonkers when things aren't steady.

Season and regs were always going to take several races to settle in.

Mclaren look to be in a decent position. I hope we get 4th by seasons half and increase dev time.

I think they have to just start, go though the motions and will be 3rd in standings at present.

Starting being the main thing though.

It's the long game, we are here for a while, this season isn't any more important then the next several. We should just be using it to get into a strong position

I think we'll be a little closer next race and I think it won't take long before we are pushing the front two.

[venkyhere]

Following that logic, doesn't that mean that Mercedes just lucked their way into building a superior engine and chassis? Or that is also a conspiracy and they had help from outside? Or that only works when is your team at disadvantage?

Mercedes helped define this formula, remember.
Plus, whatever they were doing in the development over the past few years, they 'submitted' things to FIA and 'got approval' (while other PU manufacturers were doing the same, but FIA never thought there was something cheeky being done by Mercedes), only for other teams to question FIA after 'rumours' starting popping out later ; which is when FIA decided to 'play the egalitarian' and came up with a 'new test' but still allowed Mercedes ('our engine is FIA approved') to run the illegal engine all the way until the summer break, 1/2 way into the season. There is absolutely no transparency about whether there is any actual physical testing as part of homologation or just 'CAD drawing approval'.
In times like these, that's when I remember - 'oh wait, this isn't really a 'sport' per se, this is just the annual competition within an engineering club, where they pay a fee to some 'adjudicator' to frame up the rules of competition and check compliance'. There is nothing anywhere that says the FIA are 'free from being influenced' & that the FIA have enough technical wherewithal to 'find/unhide' cheating. FIA discovers cheating or issues TDs only when member(s) of the automotive club rat each other out and put pressure on FIA to do so.

So they followed all the legal proceedings and people are mad because they may have found a loophole which may or may not be legal but people can't prove it's illegal because they got the approval from the FIA and all the people have is rage bait and click bait on the internet?

If anything, people should be mad at the FIA and applaud Mercedes because they did the clever engineering. Like they should applaud (from a technical perspective, as we are on a technical forum and not on social media) the double diffuser or the F duct or the DAS or the fan car or the 2014 Mercedes engine and the examples may go on.

Instead, people applaud clever engineering only when it's their team that does it, which is hypocrisy at it's finest and not something expected on a technical forum.

It's FIA whom I am blaming (didn't you get that?), they are a 'for hire judge' who get paid by FoM/Liberty (or whoever 'runs' the sport). Remember the 'fuel flow trick' by Ferrari ? FIA couldn't find it themselves from the data they have in hand (or maybe turned a blind eye), other teams had to 'convince' them from the same data. I don't expect anything different with the Mercedes engine for these regs. Because there is a much bigger battery and much higher recharge/discharge rate, I reckon it will be 'much harder' than 2019, to expose the compression ratio trick (or any other trick circumventing the rules) in the ICE. And even the 2019 cheat was 'settled' behind closed doors. With the nature of the business being such, stop arguing with the defence 'FIA has approved'. FIA have neither the technical nous nor the intention to 'find tricks' , unless another team presents 'evidence' and forces their hand.

[CjC]

I could have posted lots of quotes from this one but I thought to go with a positive:

"Every lap is important in 2026. At the same time, I think we are learning quite rapidly. And with what we have learned in Australia, in the China sprint, we think we are actually in a good position now in terms of especially exploiting the power units."

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433 ... chinese-gp

[Juzh]

It took 10 years of static engine regs for a mercedes customer team to finally beat them, I wouldn't be surprised at all if scenario repeats itself.

[CjC]

One thing we need to learn from that is how can we not let that happen again?

The homologation date for the PU should definitely be set to 7 days before the first day of the last pre-season test.

A more controversial rule change should be that if Mercedes collect all data from customers then all data should be shared with customers.

[SilviuAgo]

One Team, McLaren + HPP = love