2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[Ben1980]

Enjoyed the race.

Im still unsure if Oscar wins, Russell on hards may have been a tough prospect.

Good to see the car in the mix though.

[mwillems]

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

Things are starting to settle now. The gap to Merc isn't as big as portrayed and if the Miami upgrade is a good one, we may well be the lead car.

The Mclaren will continue to find not insubstantial time from the engine though the gains are dminishing.

What will be telling is just how much we bring. Feels like we've been working on this next package for longer than others, but that doesn't mean we understanding these regs as well as others, yet.

[FittingMechanics]

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

Things are starting to settle now. The gap to Merc isn't as big as portrayed and if the Miami upgrade is a good one, we may well be the lead car.

The Mclaren will continue to find not insubstantial time from the engine though the gains are dminishing.

What will be telling is just how much we bring. Feels like we've been working on this next package for longer than others, but that doesn't mean we understanding these regs as well as others, yet.

We shouldn't be too optimistic as you can never know, but the team seems to think highly of their chances of fighting for wins throughout the year. They seemed to have good understanding of development pace in previous years so hopefully they are not wrong.

Pretty impressive stuff from a "customer" team.

[BMMR61]

Nice vindication for the McLaren faithful after all the doomsayers. The team that dragged them out of the mire to two straight constructors titles and a drivers title is still intact. McLaren aren't instantly going to be rubbish, even if complacency can be a dangerous thing. Expecting another big bounce at Miami (again) though the competition won't be standing still.

[Mcl_G10]

Mclaren will gain half a second in qualy pace and 3-4 tenths in race pace with the new upgrades. How that plays out with regards to others improving between now and miami is anybody guess. I guess the team are presuming merc will find a little and also ferrari but not as much as us hence them saying they will fight for podiums from miami and wins later in season.
I cant unfortunately verify where I got the info from as its second hand from somebody I work with who knows member of staff that used to be part of the team that went over to Cologne pre new wind tunnel.

[mwillems]

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

Things are starting to settle now. The gap to Merc isn't as big as portrayed and if the Miami upgrade is a good one, we may well be the lead car.

The Mclaren will continue to find not insubstantial time from the engine though the gains are dminishing.

What will be telling is just how much we bring. Feels like we've been working on this next package for longer than others, but that doesn't mean we understanding these regs as well as others, yet.

We shouldn't be too optimistic as you can never know, but the team seems to think highly of their chances of fighting for wins throughout the year. They seemed to have good understanding of development pace in previous years so hopefully they are not wrong.

Pretty impressive stuff from a "customer" team.

We certainly can't expect, but I have purposefully stayed away because most of the ideas being spouted about the car and it's pace looked really wrong, and the idea we could read into the pace in the same way we used to, looks wrong.

I'm sticking to my guns on this one, the car was good enough to be second fastest from the seasons start, even if our use of the engine prevented it, and that we are not a million miles from Merc, absolutely not 7 tenths away from them. Given that we were finding half a second towards the end of major regs and that we are now at the start of these new regs, I fully expect us to find major time at the next update.

How long we are able to challenge at the front as others bring upgrades is a different matter. Other teams won't falter like in the old regs, everyone will find gains. Faltering now is finding .5 instead of .8. but I expect a back and forth, but that we'll likely be on the back foot.

I'd sacrifice reliability, take a 3rd place but with a car that is really fighting for first, develop and go into next year with all the tools in our locker, if we could. This year is a throwaway year to me.

[willmesquita]

Last stint, Kimi was consistently .7s faster than Piastri (both in clean air). We are no match for Mercedes pure pace alone. We'll need more than half second.

[Slahinki]

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.

I would hardly call this weekend trouble free, lol. Norris barely got any laps in during practice at all because of all the problems.

[Luscion]

Found this quote from Norris about the battery interesting

“Honestly some of the racing, I didn't even want to overtake Lewis. It's just that my battery deploys, I don't want it to deploy, but I can't control it,” Norris said when asked by Motorsport.com.

“So, I overtake him, and then I have no battery left, so he just flies past. This is not racing, this is yo-yoing. Even though he [Hamilton] says it's not, it is yo-yoing.” “When you're just at the mercy of whatever the power unit delivers, the driver should be in control of it at least, and we're not.”

Well, the problem is, it deploys into 130R. I have to lift, otherwise I'll drive into him, and then I'm not allowed to go back on throttle. If I go on throttle, my battery deploys, and I don't want it to deploy because it should have cut. But because you lift and you have to go back on [throttle], it redeploys.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/at-t ... /10809496/

[SmallSoldier]

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 have to disagree with you on this one… Track position was king in Japan… It was extremely hard to overtake even with a car with a big pace delta… Ensuring that Piastri was ahead of Russell was the right move considering that and the fact that Piastri was already P1… If Piastri loses track position to Russell because of an undercut, Russell finishes way ahead of Piastri

[SmallSoldier]

Happy for the Team’s result… P2 - P5 at this stage of the season, with the limitations we are all aware of is a great result.

Hope they can get on top of those gremlins with the battery, track time is more important than ever to dial in the cars setup, deployment, etc… I wasn’t expecting podiums this early in the season so mega happy for them to get a P2 after what was the worst case scenario in China a couple of weeks ago.

[mwillems]

Stella: Closing that gap is now the team’s priority. “We are aware we need a few tenths from the chassis to be able to contend for victories consistently,” Stella explained.

[Darth-Piekus]

In the meantime I am greatly disturbed by the situation with the fanbase. Ive been watching around and Im baffled by all this. Race 3 is over and all I see is fans and drivers who arent going that well blaming the whole ruleset when the only problem (easily fixable) is the battery. Its a toxic environment full of unnecessary drama. Im seeing rabid fans blaming the whole ruleset calling F1 fake and attacking drivers like Antonelli calling him mid for winning in these rules. The same for Hamilton and other various drivers. What is going on? Its the first time I see such an uprising. Does it have to do really with the rules or perhaps it has to do with their favorite driver/drivers or teams not winning?

[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 have to disagree with you on this one… Track position was king in Japan… It was extremely hard to overtake even with a car with a big pace delta… Ensuring that Piastri was ahead of Russell was the right move considering that and the fact that Piastri was already P1… If Piastri loses track position to Russell because of an undercut, Russell finishes way ahead of Piastri

I can't work out your reasoning, after (rightly) saying "track position was king". Oscar gave away track position after marginally extending on Russell to almost 2.0 seconds. They 'pitted him into a gap' - immediately behind Verstappen and Gasly, two of the drivers you would least want to overtake even with a pace advantage! Even with the benefit of hindsight, giving away a 2.0 second lead is something that pre-2025 Red Bull would never do. For a 1-stop race pitting at 1/3 race distance is in itself risky, especially given they hadn't done long running on the hard tyre. Finally - there were no undercuts at Suzuka 2026, zero. I've looked at the official lap times and the hard tyres took 2 laps to "come in". To reinforce this fact and negate any ideas of undercut, McLaren should have seen that Lando was well short of undercutting Charles, well short, why would Oscar have any worry of Charles? Shades of similar horrendous tactics for Oscar to undercut Charles at Budapest last year that cost him a win??? Undercuts shouldn't be hit and hope, but assessed on observable facts.

Sorry, but McLaren gave away a realistic chance of a great and rare victory today. Still as Oscar said, that we're disappointed with a 2nd place at this stage is in itself encouraging.

[BMMR61]

Stella: Closing that gap is now the team’s priority. “We are aware we need a few tenths from the chassis to be able to contend for victories consistently,” Stella explained.

Got to continue to be refreshed by Andrea's honesty and realism.

Feet on the ground, there's a sizeable gap to the true optimum speed of the Merc and they won't be slow in bringing upgrades.