2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[CjC]

However the fact Russell is surprised about the performance gain of the McLaren and Ferrari might suggest Mercedes don’t have loads of performance coming in Canada,

I also read the same thing into those comments. Interesting...

Great minds

Kimis comments pre-event were telling as well.
If you didn’t hear/ read them he pointed out that the others have big upgrades in Miami but he thought Mercedes would still have enough to just about still be the fastest then they’ll take a step forward in Canada and restore their comfortable margin (not in those exact words but along those lines).

Back to George, he’s been concerned about McLaren all season. I pointed it out in the Merc thread but the Mercs fans tried to make fun of me as a way of coping with his comments.
I’m glad my reply was handed to them from the race track.

[FittingMechanics]

I think you are onto something. Mercedes does not expect the same size of package so that means McLaren should be catching up.

If McLaren Canada upgrade is significant they could be on top by some margin. I haven't seen how much they plan to bring to Canada and they probably haven't said as much. We'll see their body language and statements during this weekend.

Great to see the correlation is perfect once again.

[AR3-GP]

I think you are onto something. Mercedes does not expect the same size of package so that means McLaren should be catching up.

If McLaren Canada upgrade is significant they could be on top by some margin. I haven't seen how much they plan to bring to Canada and they probably haven't said as much. We'll see their body language and statements during this weekend.

I don't buy the Mercedes narrative that they have simply chosen to wait for Canada. They had a full month with no GP racing. Not bring a huge upgrade to Miami is insanity. There was simply nothing else that you could do.

Thanks to another 3 week break between Miami and Canada, teams will have the chance to bring another round of substantial updates to Canada which makes the Mercedes plan null.

[Mcl_G10]

I think you are onto something. Mercedes does not expect the same size of package so that means McLaren should be catching up.

If McLaren Canada upgrade is significant they could be on top by some margin. I haven't seen how much they plan to bring to Canada and they probably haven't said as much. We'll see their body language and statements during this weekend.

Great to see the correlation is perfect once again.

I think that from here the best we can hope for us that our remaining upgrades for Canada can cancel out what merc brings.

Either way I think this season will swing around abit and it will be very difficult for any driver to get a run of victories.

[Emag]

I think people are coming into some premature conclusions. Let the rest of the weekend transpire before making these claims.

If we looked at China sprint quali + sprint race in isolation last year, then you would think Ferrari and Lewis were setup for an amazing season. We all know how that turned out.

[FittingMechanics]

I think you are onto something. Mercedes does not expect the same size of package so that means McLaren should be catching up.

If McLaren Canada upgrade is significant they could be on top by some margin. I haven't seen how much they plan to bring to Canada and they probably haven't said as much. We'll see their body language and statements during this weekend.

I don't buy the Mercedes narrative that they have simply chosen to wait for Canada. They had a full month with no GP racing. Not bring a huge upgrade to Miami is insanity. There was simply nothing else that you could do.

Thanks to another 3 week break between Miami and Canada, teams will have the chance to bring another round of substantial updates to Canada which makes the Mercedes plan null.

It could be that they want to hide their upgrade and bet on having strong enough car to challenge for good points even without the upgrade in Miami.

It makes some sense, especially if they have a novel solution. 3 weeks is a long time.

[Darth-Piekus]

Time for qualifying and see if that speed continues and it wasnt a fluke. The team and our drivers have a long point decifit to cover.

After qualifying ended I don't think Sprint Qualifying and Race was a fluke. Apparently there were Wind and Power Unit issues on the car. Strange though that they happened now.

[Danzo84]

Only thing i can think of is the mclaren has an advantage in hotter temps, like preserving the tyre for more of the lap while others overheat theirs.

[emp]

I think they were happy with the setup from sprint and expected the others to stay still so the gap would be the same. That and track evolution, wind direction and inability to put laps together.

To be honest I think they will be fine in the race as most likely the teams prioritized qualy pace considering the low numbers of overtakes we saw in the sprint and the fact that it may be a wet race or any race at all.

[Darth-Piekus]

A little dissapointed by today's performance but understandable if they had Wind and Power Unit deployment issues. Perhaps a Wet Set Up also that might give them the victory tomorrow? Who knows?

[FittingMechanics]

It wasn't a fairytale day after all. Not sure what to think of it, it was a strange quali for McLaren. Both drivers struggled (Oscar in Q1, Lando in Q2). Oscar didn't improve in Q3 compared to Q2 and both drivers couldn't improve on the last run. I feel there was a little bit more in the car if the quali ran smooth, but probably not enough for P1.

Strange to see such a swing but we could have teams expecting wet race and qualifying with a wet setup. I hope we see some racing tomorrow.

[Emag]

I think people are coming into some premature conclusions. Let the rest of the weekend transpire before making these claims.

If we looked at China sprint quali + sprint race in isolation last year, then you would think Ferrari and Lewis were setup for an amazing season. We all know how that turned out.

As I said, premature conclusions. A shame Canada is so far away.
The season is getting spicy!

[CjC]

Very odd. 3 tenths slower today than yesterday’s sprint quali….?

This season is starting to look like the from book from 2024 only McLaren and Mercedes have flipped positions, Max is in there. Ferrari too with loads of hype and promise but ultimately end up being third

[Darth-Piekus]

Perhaps the car isn't ready yet and needs the rest of the upgrade to work at it's best and avoid these kind of performance drops.

[Avocado]

It's entirely possible that they were preparing for rainy conditions.