2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[_cerber1]

Bravo, Oscar, a fantastic Grand Prix! Overall, the team looks more confident with each lap. It's a shame they missed the race in China, but we're still on the right track. The team knows what they're doing, despite some fans' skepticism.
Didn't Oscar say earlier that a lot would depend on the Japanese round? Did they really bring something that's not visible, but it worked so well?

[FittingMechanics]

Seems like they need a net gain of about 5-6 tenths on Mercedes to be on top. I guess Australia gave me quite a pessimistic view on McLaren's chances. Would have been interesting to see how China would have turned out if they could race there.

It's still going to be hard because there's no reason why Mercedes would stand still this month, so technically McLaren would need to find 7-8 tenths (optimistically) in one upgrade package in Miami. If Mercedes also has a huge upgrade coming, they probably need to gain 9 tenths to a second. Still a tall order but they seem confident. There's some things that bring "free laptime" with regards to race pace once you iron out some issues with the car so they seem in a good position from that point of view.

With bad Mercedes starts they don't need as much. The formula is very immature, there will be big gains.

[bauc]

Gutted for that SC .. Oscar was on his way to win this thing after that mega start and perfect race control untill the SC.... RUS and ANT would have spend a lot of time trying to beat each other after the pitstops..... but is good to be back on the podium.

WE WILL WIN AGAIN! - Ron Dennis!

[_cerber1]

The race pace was very good today. And the tires were generally fine, though perhaps the tire compounds played to our advantage.

[FittingMechanics]

Gutted for that SC .. Oscar was on his way to win this thing after that mega start and perfect race control untill the SC.... RUS and ANT would have spend a lot of time trying to beat each other after the pitstops..... but is good to be back on the podium.

WE WILL WIN AGAIN! - Ron Dennis!

RUS was much slower than ANT. We were lucky that ANT had a terrible start so there was a chance to fight for the win.

They need to develop hard but this is encouraging. Mercedes with all the works advantage, no championship fight, HPP witholding data and giving a new spec engine in Melbourne and the team is still close.

[BMMR61]

Randy Singh strikes again. Yeah what was the strategy behind pitting early when maintaining strong pace (especially Oscar)??? Being undercut wasn't a valid reason. The risk of a safety car, which happened, would scupper any possible reason. Getting into clean air? Having to get past Max and Pierre is never a nice clean slam dunk. Come on McLaren strategy team. When is Courtenay going to finish gardening leave and kick the essential ass to be a professional outfit in every department. Great work Oscar, something out of nothing.

I think Courtenay started.

IMO this strategy call can be understood. It made sense at the time. Russell would be able to easily undercut Piastri and then you hope for a SC with the window open just for a few laps or Leclerc will undercut you.

It was just super unlucky timing, not a major strategy mistake.

Bad strategy would be to allow the undercut and then pit immediately after.

According to the Sky commentary after the first pitstops it took 3 laps to get the hard compound up to full operating speed and there was a net loss over 2-3 laps of hard tyre running. Undercut looked like a non event if the info I received is accurate.

[FittingMechanics]

Randy Singh strikes again. Yeah what was the strategy behind pitting early when maintaining strong pace (especially Oscar)??? Being undercut wasn't a valid reason. The risk of a safety car, which happened, would scupper any possible reason. Getting into clean air? Having to get past Max and Pierre is never a nice clean slam dunk. Come on McLaren strategy team. When is Courtenay going to finish gardening leave and kick the essential ass to be a professional outfit in every department. Great work Oscar, something out of nothing.

I think Courtenay started.

IMO this strategy call can be understood. It made sense at the time. Russell would be able to easily undercut Piastri and then you hope for a SC with the window open just for a few laps or Leclerc will undercut you.

It was just super unlucky timing, not a major strategy mistake.

Bad strategy would be to allow the undercut and then pit immediately after.

According to the Sky commentary after the first pitstops it took 3 laps to get the hard compound up to full operating speed and there was a net loss over 2-3 laps of hard tyre running. Undercut looked like a non event if the info I received is accurate.

Norris was slow out of the gate with them, Piastri wasn't. Piastri was faster than Russell immediately. The team obviously thought undercut works as they told Norris to pit to overtake. But for him it didn't work.

Easy to armchair this but I am fine with this call. I was very critical before so it's not like I defend the team.

[Darth-Piekus]

Trust me Ground Effect. I know that Piastri is championship material. I can see him improving dramatically every year. Its the idiots who called him mid who learned from last year and especially today that this isnt the case.

[Jambier]

Great result.

With that Mercedes engine, McLaren should be the second force this year

[Darth-Piekus]

Starting from Miami we should do everything we can to turn things around.

[CjC]

Great result, Piastri looked strong all weekend.
Mclaren are in the fight!

[De Wet]

Some good Energy Management by Oscar today.

[Gillian]

Great race for Piastri! Very well done. Norris as well, considering everything. Lets see what Miami brings, maybe another WDC/WCC is on the cards.

[Avocado]

I'm impressed. The car is very fast and on the outside it's still the same as in the first race. This trouble-free weekend has proven that the design is great and that we're close.

[Ben1980]

Randy Singh strikes again. Yeah what was the strategy behind pitting early when maintaining strong pace (especially Oscar)??? Being undercut wasn't a valid reason. The risk of a safety car, which happened, would scupper any possible reason. Getting into clean air? Having to get past Max and Pierre is never a nice clean slam dunk. Come on McLaren strategy team. When is Courtenay going to finish gardening leave and kick the essential ass to be a professional outfit in every department. Great work Oscar, something out of nothing.

I think Courtenay started.

IMO this strategy call can be understood. It made sense at the time. Russell would be able to easily undercut Piastri and then you hope for a SC with the window open just for a few laps or Leclerc will undercut you.

It was just super unlucky timing, not a major strategy mistake.

Bad strategy would be to allow the undercut and then pit immediately after.

Courtney is at Mclaren. Correct.

The timing was fine, especially as Kimi was taking chunks out of the lead. A normal stop, he comes out in first place still.

Safety cars are what they are, luck of the draw sometimes.