2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[AR3-GP]

Maybe doing something like that would confine them permanently to 2nd best this year, but keeping the ratios as is offers opportunity to be the best at some tracks.

Suspect it's more of a cost thing. I would be surprised if they are not much more similar to Merc from 2027.

I would not be surprised if they kept them shorter (or Mercedes moved to shorten theirs). With end of straight recharging why would you have long final gear?

Do people think McLaren randomly picked their gear ratios? Stella in that article explains that they feel they gain more by having shorter gears.

Power split is shifting next year so it will be a reset for everyone.

[Darth-Piekus]

Hows the weather in Montreal?

[Badger]

Maybe doing something like that would confine them permanently to 2nd best this year, but keeping the ratios as is offers opportunity to be the best at some tracks.

Suspect it's more of a cost thing. I would be surprised if they are not much more similar to Merc from 2027.

I would not be surprised if they kept them shorter (or Mercedes moved to shorten theirs). With end of straight recharging why would you have long final gear?

Do people think McLaren randomly picked their gear ratios? Stella in that article explains that they feel they gain more by having shorter gears.

Do you think Mercedes randomly picked theirs? Who has had the better engine performance so far?

[Macklaren]

Suspect it's more of a cost thing. I would be surprised if they are not much more similar to Merc from 2027.

I would not be surprised if they kept them shorter (or Mercedes moved to shorten theirs). With end of straight recharging why would you have long final gear?

Do people think McLaren randomly picked their gear ratios? Stella in that article explains that they feel they gain more by having shorter gears.

Do you think Mercedes randomly picked theirs? Who has had the better engine performance so far?

Gear ratio optimization will be very track dependent. Let's see in Monaco next week

[Badger]

I would not be surprised if they kept them shorter (or Mercedes moved to shorten theirs). With end of straight recharging why would you have long final gear?

Do people think McLaren randomly picked their gear ratios? Stella in that article explains that they feel they gain more by having shorter gears.

Do you think Mercedes randomly picked theirs? Who has had the better engine performance so far?

Gear ratio optimization will be very track dependent. Let's see in Monaco next week

If you are using Monaco as your benchmark you've got the wrong gear ratios Even a track like Canada ought to favour shorter ratios as it is very stop-start with only one proper straight. I don't think this is a major performance differentiator, hence why they won't spend the money to change it. That can be spent more efficiently elsewhere.

[Macklaren]

Do you think Mercedes randomly picked theirs? Who has had the better engine performance so far?

Gear ratio optimization will be very track dependent. Let's see in Monaco next week

If you are using Monaco as your benchmark you've got the wrong gear ratios Even a track like Canada ought to favour shorter ratios as it is very stop-start with only one proper straight. I don't think this is a major performance differentiator, hence why they won't spend the money to change it. That can be spent more efficiently elsewhere.

Yes agreed. explains why they are closer to Merc here despite the cold weather and the Merc upgrade on a bogey track. Also, as explained earlier, the main time loss is top speed at the end of the main straight so gear ratios do matter here

[Macklaren]

Good luck to Team McLaren at the Indy 500 today!

[Macklaren]

Hows the weather in Montreal?

[FittingMechanics]

Suspect it's more of a cost thing. I would be surprised if they are not much more similar to Merc from 2027.

I would not be surprised if they kept them shorter (or Mercedes moved to shorten theirs). With end of straight recharging why would you have long final gear?

Do people think McLaren randomly picked their gear ratios? Stella in that article explains that they feel they gain more by having shorter gears.

Do you think Mercedes randomly picked theirs? Who has had the better engine performance so far?

I don't think McLaren suffered because of their gear ratios, it was more because of not understanding the best way to recharge over a lap and this gap has been reduced or anulled.

Gear ratio is only part of the puzzle. It is not like McLaren randomly picked their gear ratio, they piicked their ratios based on their calculations which show that for their car philosophy these ratios will win them the most points over a year (my guess, theoretically they could have picked it to nail it for certain races instead). This means that McLaren expects to extract more laptime in mid speed while Mercedes aims to extract it at the top end. Doesn't mean one or the other is wrong. You set it to your car.

I'm just trying to say I doubt McLaren is suffering because of "wrong ratio". They picked the best ratio they saw for their car and Stella seems to still think it's the best one. Maybe it is because the car is draggy so no point in trying to reach these top speeds and you instead use more acceleration at mid speed, or it could be any other number of reasons (starts maybe).

Let's not simplify this to some kind of a mistake like they are amateur racers.

[FittingMechanics]

Looks like Pato doesn't have stellar pace in Indy 500. He damaged his main oval car last week and is running a new/different one.

Also F2 race currently is on bone dry but cold track. Could be a dry race.

[Mcl_G10]

So merc may have slowed themselves down with setup changes for nothing?

I hope for a little drizzle, enough to cause the 2 merc drivers who will push each other like mad to make mistakes!

[FittingMechanics]

So merc may have slowed themselves down with setup changes for nothing?

I hope for a little drizzle, enough to cause the 2 merc drivers who will push each other like mad to make mistakes!

I bet every car made some changes expecting rain. Everyone was quite sure it will be rain so it made perfect sense (no one saved tires as well).

[FittingMechanics]

Indy 500 update - Pato gained in both pit sequences, is now 6th but he doesn't seem to have strong pace. He can follow but slowly loses ground. Not a lot of passing overall this year.

[Darth-Piekus]

We might have a wet race so far.

[ScottR267]

Do or die on the inters with the rest of them on dry tyres around us