2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[venkyhere]

Stella:

After the race, Stella speaks to Viaplay. The team boss is clearly disappointed with the result, especially because Norris said to have the fastest car. "The feeling is that there is a bit of disappointment, because Lando had by far the fastest car today. As he said in the in-lap, we were too fast today: we were so fast that we were in front of the pit entrance for a few seconds when the virtual safety car was deployed."

https://www.gptoday.net/nl/nieuws/f1/29 ... elste-auto

Oh my god, what did Stella just say ? 'fastest car' ? No way. Fastest driver in the universe ? of course

Jokes apart, Norris is much more relaxed with his driving after becoming World Champion. It's only now that his true talent is coming out, he has nothing to prove, so his mind's 'application' is far more surgical - we can see he no longer makes 'mistakes' and even if he does, he is able to recover. His biggest strength is 'fast without hurting the tyres' - some of it is the inherent engineering with the Mclaren cars since RobMarshall/PeterProd took over, yes, but I am 100% convinced that it also has to do with how precise his pedal and hand inputs are to the car. I think he is the numero uno on the current grid when it comes to preserving tyres.

[Darth-Piekus]

Pitstop just lost him time, he would still end up in P5 behind Russel on new mediums. I don't think anything really changes.

The VSC was super unlucky, Max being mature and letting Hamilton through also was bad for Lando. And then there was nothing to mix up the race afterwards.

Norris did a great first lap, then pulled away and just did an awesome race. He was just super unlucky.

BTW imagine how stupid would McLaren look if there was a crash soon after VSC. They are "lucky" that in the end it probably didn't mattet that they made a huge strategic blunder.

I agree that the VSC (I am having doubts if it was a fair VSC) costed but Lando had a 7 seconds pit stop. That definitely cost a lot.

Part of the blame should also go to this farce of a track. On a normal track Norris could have passed both Max and Kimi and win it easily. He had the speed to recover. I hope they will never bring Madrid back unless they change the whole track.

But I am curious to hear what do people think of the VSC. Stroll did not crash and if I saw correctly he reversed out of that track exit. Was the VSC necessary or could it be done with double yellows?

[Badger]

And some of those laps were spent behind a slow GR losing time, so you can add time for that too McLaren had ridiculous pace today.

No it wasn’t. As soon as he closed on Russell he pitted

You can see it in the graph. 4 laps where he is suddenly much slower than before and after.

[SilviuAgo]

Dumb singh

Exactly! Do you expect right strategy from McLaren? I am saying for years that Randeep Singh is useless...but who cares? Strategy team is one of the worst on the grid. Even a chicken would have done it right more times than mclaren. But seems no one care than the fans.

[Slahinki]

Just saw on reddit that after lap 1, the race had only 4 on track overtakes. 6 less than even Monaco. Absolute joke of a venue.

[Seerix]

by the way, since there's a lot of talk about strategy... Why did they pit Osc into 3 car traffic? He was close to Lawson and pitted into traffic (maybe to try undercut?) behind BOR/COL/LIN. LAW then pitted next 1-2 laps and came comfortably ahead. It felt like the pit was mistimed from McL side. Not that "fighting" for some p8-p10 is anything to write home about...

[SiLo]

I only watched the race in 30 on F1TV and I regret doing even that. This track is so incredibly forgetful.

[Balalu]

I just can't understand how they can design a track from scratch, investing millions in it, and make it impossible to overtake! How?

This is a MONUMENTAL f* up. It's actually worse than Monaco (which has the excuse of being a classic).

[erikejw]

According to Stella it was a no-brainer to pit Norris.

If it was so obvious one lap later then it must have been a no-brainer to risk to pit before any knowledge of the vsc.

The key fact is that track position is everything here, like in Monaco so pitting slightly early is fine.

Hence, in this specific situation near the pit window it was a clear decision to pit.

[Slahinki]

According to Stella it was a no-brainer to pit Norris.

If it was so obvious one lap later then it must have been a no-brainer to risk to pit before any knowledge of the vsc.

The key fact is that track position is everything here, like in Monaco so pitting slightly early is fine.

Hence, in this specific situation near the pit window it was a clear decision to pit.

I feel like they pitted at the exact worst time. Didn't preempt the VSC, didn't try to build a tire delta after they missed it. For a team that likes to talk about strategic flexibility they made sure they had none. Again.

[Darth-Piekus]

Thing is nobody was sure they would bring out the VSC. Stroll didn't crash and in fact he reversed out of the track exit. A double yellows would be enough there.

[Nicktendo86]

The article on motorsport, shows that the lap times were shrinking between Lando and Leclerc with lap 13 pretty much neck and neck. With the others on new hards it seems Lando wouldn't have had the tyres to extend it much anyway and keep extending.

Basically the VSC secured 3rd no matter what.

If Lando’s tyres were really going off then there is even less excuse as to why the pit wall was not in the ball when they saw Stroll had stopped and call Lando in to cover the chance of a VSC. Utterly brain dead.

[mwillems]

McLaren was the dominant car in 3 of the last 4 races.

Yes. With strong contribution for the reasons above.

Big package coming next race and maccarena wing will be back so I think we'll be fine in Baku

It won't get over the fundamental drawback, so challenging for a podium will be tough.

As predicted, we were always in the fight for a win at Madring, and were the fastest car.

[mwillems]

I just can't understand how they can design a track from scratch, investing millions in it, and make it impossible to overtake! How?

This is a MONUMENTAL f* up. It's actually worse than Monaco (which has the excuse of being a classic).

Yeah I agree with this, although bear in mind it is a different formula now. In the middle of the last formula it might have been great racing.

But yeah, they've designed a track to challenge the car and driver, not to entertain the fans. People think they are synonymous, they are not, though they overlap.

[Darth-Piekus]

After one more day the whole VSC seems fishy to me. First of all Stroll hadn't even crashed and in fact he was reversing to go out. A double yellow was enough. Secondly have a look at the time they took to get the VSC out. It's like they waited for Antonelli. https://x.com/F1/status/2099232397996790024

I feel like Norris's win was stolen yesterday.