2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[Darth-Piekus]

Apart from the gearbox issue the car was slow compared to the competition. Hopefully they will fix it overnight.

I wanna hear what people think. Where was Mclaren losing all this time?

[Macklaren]

Everyone was visibly struggling with graining. This was the first time I have heard the commentary team talk about graining during Fp1/FP2. it was that bad

[SilviuAgo]

I think the main issue it will.be that front left. After 3 or 4 laps started to fall apart. And with a huge pit lane, to have 2 or more stops in the race will not be the optimal strategy.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

Stella said some races ago that Piastri missing around 20 minutes could have cost 1–2 tenths. since the software is constantly learning and optimizing from every run. So to expect in Quali/Race Lando to be +0.6 vs Oscar?

Can they not transfer the algo from Oscar's car into Lando's? or is it very different accounting for driving style?

I think, theoretically, they could if, for some strange reason, they'd not managed to get any running in any session (extreme example, but let's say a driver is taken ill so a reserve driver steps in for Quali). However I think that, because Lando DID run in FP1 and should be fine for FP3, putting Oscar's data into the system could confuse things because of how machine learning works.

[_cerber1]

Lando missed out on long runs.

[CjC]

I’m perplexed:

Sky Sports F1's Ted Kravitz:
"McLaren came here with a lot of confidence having won on similar-ish track layouts in Hungary and Zandvoort but a gearbox failure they haven't seen before, with Lando Norris' car, was somewhat unexpected.
"They changed it and Norris' car is ready to go now. You'd expect him to go out in this P3 session and do some of the long runs he missed to get the crucial tyre understanding he missed in free practice two - but McLaren say they are not going to do that.
"Yes, he will go quite early, but they say what's done is done, what's lost is lost, and now they have to concentrate on Qualifying like they normally would in any free practice three session.
"So I think the penalty for Norris from missing that free practice two mileage will come on Sunday."

[CjC]

Its a lack of tyres isn’t it

[WardenOfTheNorth]

They can use the tyre data from Ocar's car at least.

[ScottR267]

Great lap from Lando given he missed all of FP2

[mwillems]

They now start to do also PR (paid) articles to praised Oscar?
https://www.pitdebrief.com/post/stella- ... um=bluesky

Ever since his rookie season in 2023, the 25-year-old has struggled on low grip surfaces in the main. While he has improved on the tyre management side, the driver from Melbourne has still had struggles in adapting to the machinery underneath him when it is tricky to drive. The rear of the MCL40 in particular has been a weakness in 2026.

Nonetheless, Monza was a step forward. He outqualified his World Champion teammate and was P3, before a grid penalty for impeding Liam Lawson dropped him to 6th on the grid. Piastri was still two spots ahead of Norris, nonetheless.

Stella is confident the performance shown by Piastri at the F1 Italian GP will be a regular theme across the rest of 2026.

“So very happy, very pleased with the progress that Oscar is making. I think he will have a very strong second half of the season.”

Of course he's going to back his driver and help him find confidence. What else was he going to do? It's not Stella's style to publicly berate and if it were, not every driver will react well to it and so it still might not happen.

Dear lord, it's just normal man management.

I agree with you—it's normal for a Team Principal to back their drivers, praise them, encourage them, and stand by them. But my feeling is that at McLaren, Andrea Stella goes a step further when doing this for Oscar.

I know that Lando is doing better in 2026, but not too long ago, during the first half of the 2025 season, things weren't looking great for him. Maybe my memory isn't perfect, but I don't recall seeing articles or interviews with Stella supporting Lando at every single race like he's doing with Oscar.

Call me unforgiving, but I just can't forget or forgive Stella's 'smile' when Lando DNF'd in Zandvoort.

https://www.tiktok.com/@formula1.ily/vi ... 2813720852

https://scontent.fotp3-2.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=6AA79F91

Anyway, as you know, I've been a McLaren fan for a very long time and we all know that even Ron Dennis had his favorites—Ayrton over Berger or Prost, Mika over DC, and Lewis over Alonso. I hope Oscar figures out these new cars soon so McLaren can get back on top. Maybe right now he's in a similar position to Russell at Mercedes, needing more time to adapt his driving style to the new regulations. McLaren definitely doesn't need a Ricciardo 2.0—a great driver who just failed to adapt.

You can't remember the huge amount of contentious concersation in here about car vs lando and the team defending him and the non Mclaren drivers saying the car was amazing, faultless and the drivers not goid enough?

It dominated the first half of the season.


I do not know why he smiled, if it is a wry smile, if he said something to Lando and didn't listen, wether he just thought it summed up his weekend or if it had any connection to how he feels about Lando at all.

What I do know is neither does the photogropher who got a perfect shot that journos can use, in complete ignorance, as click bait to feed to fans who want to ignore reason and jump on a banwagon.

[mwillems]

Not to mention all the talk of Lando being prioritised over Oscar last year in team decisions, which dominated the second half of the year

Very very short memories in here.

[billamend]

Not to mention all the talk of Lando being prioritised over Oscar last year in team decisions, which dominated the second half of the year

Very very short memories in here.

Not sure what you mean, because he was never prioritised?

Even in Monza, it couldn’t have been more fair: the driver with strategy priority was guaranteed that he wouldn’t be undercut. He was undercut, and the team corrected that.

And do people forget the Singapore consequences vs COTA?

[Darth-Piekus]

Guys let's leave this whole Lando vs Oscar thing. At the end of the day Oscar himself is responsible for sending the car crashing in 3 back to back to back different occasions and the team wasn't responsible for that. All he needed to do is finish the races at worst behind Lando and Max and he would be champion. One less DNF crash if he had he would be champion.

I'm more interested to hear people about FP3 and the Mclaren having improved dramatically over yesterday and if we can expect another leap for Qualifying.

[mwillems]

Not to mention all the talk of Lando being prioritised over Oscar last year in team decisions, which dominated the second half of the year

Very very short memories in here.

Not sure what you mean, because he was never prioritised?

Even in Monza, it couldn’t have been more fair: the driver with strategy priority was guaranteed that he wouldn’t be undercut. He was undercut, and the team corrected that.

And do people forget the Singapore consequences vs COTA?

I didnt say he was, i was talking about the conspiracy theories which kicked on proper after the summer break in with Oscar was said to repeatedly get the rough end of decisions.

[Darth-Piekus]

On other news. Do you think the car can get pole if Norris does one of his magical laps?