2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

Hoping for a WDC or a WCC is a good way to be disappointed. This season was stacked against the customer teams and the team is doing really well. I would also say that the gap is not that big. For my eyeball the car is faster than Ferrari and Red Bull.

Yes agree. I think P2 in the WCC with a few wins this year may be the best outcome but after the championship tunarounds of the last 2 seasons, one can always hope

For sure, I am still hopeful. I think Mercedes has plenty of room to trip themselves up (Russell won't go down without a fight) and McLaren should develop well. But the gap is already quite big, our DNSs did us no good.

[Darth-Piekus]

I might have to agree with Macklaren here. Mercedes does still have an engine advantage over it's customers due to the fact that they know all it's secrets. Personally I don't buy the lie of Toto Wolf that somehow Mclaren found something that Mercedes themselves don't know. Still we can gradually over the year try to cover the gap by overdeveloping them. Though I can't say I like the results of this specific upgrade so far.

We are losing so much time on the huge straight. Something isn't working as intended.

Unless it's track characteristics that damages our speed I don't think we deserve more than 5th and 6th today at best.

Anyway. We are fighting Ferrari for 2nd place in WCC and WDC so let's try at least that. Next year the team better try to innovate. Don't wait again what others will create.

[CjC]

I nearly had a panic on then

[FittingMechanics]

Looked like a hard sprint quali. The drivers couldn't find a lap until the end. P3 and P4 are a great result. It's not super far to Mercedes.

[Darth-Piekus]

I can safely say that both last laps were masterclass laps? Ferrari and Red Bull were faster today but I liked what our boys pulled at the end and I believe they deserve the praise. Now let's see if we can tweak that car more as there shouldn't be that much of a distance. Unless something isn't working as intended or it's track specific. All that time was lost on the long straight but on the technical sectors we were better.

[CjC]

Looked like a hard sprint quali. The drivers couldn't find a lap until the end. P3 and P4 are a great result. It's not super far to Mercedes.

Sounded like Merc has brought a bit more here in terms of upgrades to counter McLaren according to Russell.

McLaren have more coming in the next 2 races as well which they are ‘excited’ about. Potentially a new nose at some point too according to Sky

[Darth-Piekus]

We can safely say though that this year is the year of Mercedes in terms of WCC and WDC. I am not sure how we can make a comeback. So I would say enjoy the battle for second and our target is to overdevelop Mercedes to beat them on the second half and at least start next year on the lead.

[CjC]

Stella has confirmed that they aren’t running the new front wing so it’s effectively the ‘Miami’ car.

McLaren will be close if they can get it all running correctly over the next few races.

[Macklaren]

Not bad at all. NOR left 1.5tenth or so in the last corner. Let's see race pace tomorrow

[Darth-Piekus]

Stella has confirmed that they aren’t running the new front wing so it’s effectively the ‘Miami’ car.

McLaren will be close if they can get it all running correctly over the next few races.

Wait a minute? Is it just the front wing? What about the Halo wing, the changes on bodywork, floor, nose and sidepods?
Any idea what is the problem with the new front wing and they didn't use it?

[CjC]

Stella has confirmed that they aren’t running the new front wing so it’s effectively the ‘Miami’ car.

McLaren will be close if they can get it all running correctly over the next few races.

Wait a minute? Is it just the front wing? What about the Halo wing, the changes on bodywork, floor, nose and sidepods?
Any idea what is the problem with the new front wing and they didn't use it?

I’m not 100% sure but I think it’s only the new wing which they aren’t running.

This is some of what he said:

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella on Sky Sports F1:
"I think it’s a fair margin considering they (Mercedes) had important upgrades here.
"We also had some upgrades. We actually wanted to take a bit more time to see the behaviour of the front wing, so we raced with the previous front wing.
"So, looking at the fact that the car is pretty much the Miami car, it’s a gap that remains encouraging.
"Obviously we want to be in pole position, and today we are three tenths off so all things need to be put in perspective."

When I heard him say it I thought that it was a bit of a stretch to call it the ‘Miami, car considering.

He’s encouraged by the gap to Mercedes considering it’s the old wing… it would seem that there is a lot of lap time in the new wing however, they weren’t confident it was fully delivering when they ran it on track today

[Emag]

I honestly didn't see anything new at all. Yesterday they were sharing photos of Oscar's car with the old front wing and calling it the upgraded McLaren and I was confused because it looked like the same car. Today on Lando's car you could see that the new wing is actually quite a change compared to what they had, but they were locking up everywhere with that during FP1 so it makes sense not to use it. I think AR3GP shared a radio com snippet between Oscar and the pitwall when he tried the new front wing where he got told to close the SM mode manually. Maybe it's miss-calibrated and it's not closing in sync (best case scenario for McLaren as this is probably easily fixable), or maybe this new front wing is just not dialed in at all with the rest of the car at the moment.

Other than that, rear wing endplates and the bodywork changes they mentioned, if they exist at all, were too hard to tell apart from the previous spec car.

[AR3-GP]

I’m not 100% sure but I think it’s only the new wing which they aren’t running.

This is some of what he said:

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella on Sky Sports F1:
"I think it’s a fair margin considering they (Mercedes) had important upgrades here.
"We also had some upgrades. We actually wanted to take a bit more time to see the behaviour of the front wing, so we raced with the previous front wing.
"So, looking at the fact that the car is pretty much the Miami car, it’s a gap that remains encouraging.
"Obviously we want to be in pole position, and today we are three tenths off so all things need to be put in perspective."

When I heard him say it I thought that it was a bit of a stretch to call it the ‘Miami, car considering.

He’s encouraged by the gap to Mercedes considering it’s the old wing… it would seem that there is a lot of lap time in the new wing however, they weren’t confident it was fully delivering when they ran it on track today

I think the possibly worrying thing is that this is a 10 corner (and that's generous) 70 second lap. That's why all teammate gaps are basically nothing and all teams lineup 2-by-2. Yet Merc still pulled 3 tenths (and possibly more tomorrow). 3 tenths here is not 3 tenths of Miami.

I think we will get a better read tomorrow. The other teams will hope to be closer because this would be a massacre on a track with actual corners.

[AR3-GP]

Technical director for engineering Neil Houldey said “the front wing wasn’t quite delivering what we expected and we ultimately took the call to run the previous specification front wing, which gave the drivers more confidence and allowed them to unlock more performance”.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/why- ... -montreal/

[michl420]

Loosing big on the 2 main straights to all competitors (raw power and/or energy management).