2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[koolway]

Not sure it needed all that, my comment literally says "These would logically be individual to every team to best suit their car", which implies a certain level of control.

That being said it's not total control, HPP designs everything from hardware to software with the works team in mind. The customers are simply invited to use the same product. If the software with all its tools works for them as well that's great.

It wasn't an objection to what you said, more of a clarification for previous commenters and future readers

Teams have no control to tweak how PU deliver, harvest, ... energy outside of predefined settings.

They are provided a set of engine strategies, hybrid power profiles, harvesting ajustements, engine brake migration,... and they have to operate within that framework. They cannot adjust them as it's part of the IP delivered by the manufacturers. (and firmware homologated by FIA)
ie : "STRAT 4", "ENG MIG 2" are the same for mercedes, mclaren, ...

The Mercedes engineer assigned to mclaren is there to validate that their intent will not harm the engine, not to develop custom settings per say.
Custom maps rely on manufacturer-customer relationship and they can request the manufacturer to "tweak" something, but it's up to manufacturer's discretion to integrate them. And all customers will subsequently get that "tweak" setting... as all team running the same PU must be able to operate them equally.

Customer teams "only" bundle manufacturer settings and map them to relevant rotary/paddle/button (they create some shortcuts from the settings matrix they were delivered):
Mode A =
– STRAT = 4
– Hybrid profile = Attack
– Engine braking = −1
– Harvest bias = Low
– Fuel target = +0.02
- ...

[AR3-GP]

And just to be clear, I am not arguing that there is zero disadvantage for McLaren (and other customers) compared to Mercedes on the first year of a brand new regulation set with brand new power units. I am arguing about the nature of that disadvantage (flexibility in deployment maps not being one of them)

You're arguing this, but it's wrong. The "flexibility" is governed by Mercedes and their software/hardware limitations. You don't know what those are, but we do know that there is a framework. The situation in 2018 was described below:

Mercedes' three basic power modes have different supplementary settings that impact how the MGU-K and MGU-H recover or deploy energy, with Mercedes highlighting the race start as an opportunity for "full deployment".

Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas are afforded reduced mileage allocations of the higher power modes to protect the engines, as restrictions have tightened for 2018 and each driver must not use more than three engines over the course of the season.

This mileage is dictated by what Mercedes called the "phase document", which defines the limits to which the engines in its works cars, and customer teams Williams and Force India, may be used during each race weekend.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... 4/5321594/


There's also report currently that Alpine have had to delay their shakedown because of delays on Mercedes side. It is another disadvantage for customers in a new engine cycle.

[FittingMechanics]

Expectations-wise, I would personally not expect any of Mercedes' customers to be on par with them starting the season. However, given the recent track record plus available resources (both human and infrastructure), I would definitely expect McLaren to be able to bridge the gap to the factory team just because they already proved they can do it. I just can't really make any guesses on *when I expect that to happen without seeing what the pace picture looks like after the first couple of races.

I personally think if any of the customers start the season on-par with Mercedes, that should be considered a big disappointment for the factory team.

I don't think Mercedes deserves this trust in their capabilities, they had multiple years trying to come back and couldn't figure it out.

[Emag]

Yeah I am not going to continue with this topic anymore. I have seen the difference in deployment myself and I am 90% sure I have heard James Key say something about this exact topic back in 2021 when McLaren switched to Mercedes. He mentioned something about not receiving a "black box" but rather working closely with Mercedes to optimize the power unit for the car/track.

What you describe with the profiles, harvesting and engine braking are a completely different thing to what was being discussed. It makes sense for those to be pre-programmed and quite possibly unalterable.

But deployment maps? No. Customers have different requirements to the factory team and running some default energy deployment maps just wouldn't work. They would be very slow, or extremely limited in setup range. Something that we have not seen. Williams is low drag pretty much everywhere, whereas McLaren is totally the opposite. Mercedes somewhere in-between. Yet they seemingly deploy energy differently throughout a lap. They're not manually switching between modes in qualifying either to explain the difference in SoC during laps between teams.

They almost definitely have different deployment strategies for each track.

[Emag]

Mercedes' three basic power modes have different supplementary settings that impact how the MGU-K and MGU-H recover or deploy energy, with Mercedes highlighting the race start as an opportunity for "full deployment".

Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas are afforded reduced mileage allocations of the higher power modes to protect the engines, as restrictions have tightened for 2018 and each driver must not use more than three engines over the course of the season.

This mileage is dictated by what Mercedes called the "phase document", which defines the limits to which the engines in its works cars, and customer teams Williams and Force India, may be used during each race weekend.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... 4/5321594/


There's also report currently that Alpine have had to delay their shakedown because of delays on Mercedes side. It is another disadvantage for customers in a new engine cycle.

This article literally confirms what I am trying to say. I don't even need confirmation to be honest, because I have confirmed this by watching the differences in deployment between customers with my own eyes. Something everyone else is free to do.

It says Mercedes has three basic power modes with supplementary settings that control deployment and recovery. Supplementary settings which are adjustable for each customer on each track.

[AR3-GP]

Yeah I am not going to continue with this topic anymore. I have seen the difference in deployment myself and I am 90% sure I have heard James Key say something about this exact topic back in 2021 when McLaren switched to Mercedes. He mentioned something about not receiving a "black box" but rather working closely with Mercedes to optimize the power unit for the car/track.

What you describe with the profiles, harvesting and engine braking are a completely different thing to what was being discussed. It makes sense for those to be pre-programmed and quite possibly unalterable.

But deployment maps? No. Customers have different requirements to the factory team and running some default energy deployment maps just wouldn't work. They would be very slow, or extremely limited in setup range. Something that we have not seen. Williams is low drag pretty much everywhere, whereas McLaren is totally the opposite. Mercedes somewhere in-between. Yet they seemingly deploy energy differently throughout a lap. They're not manually switching between modes in qualifying either to explain the difference in SoC during laps between teams.

They almost definitely have different deployment strategies for each track.

I am not disputing what you are saying. I'm sure some teams choose to deploy the energy in one part of the track at a certain rate, and other customers do something different. Of course there is some flexibility to control where the energy is deployed and how much but it is like comparing Apple and App developers for apple devices. They are playing in a sandbox designed by Apple. It is not infinitely flexible, and we know that there are restrictions and rate limits because of the hardware:

Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas are afforded reduced mileage allocations of the higher power modes to protect the engines, as restrictions have tightened for 2018 and each driver must not use more than three engines over the course of the season.

This mileage is dictated by what Mercedes called the "phase document", which defines the limits to which the engines in its works cars, and customer teams Williams and Force India, may be used during each race weekend.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... 4/5321594/

I'm not sure what you are defending. If certain deployment strategies nuke the PU, then obviously they can't be used. Hardware limitation supersedes what the teams would like to do and the hardware is developed around Mercedes. If Mclaren uncover a way to deploy energy that is more advantageous for them, it's up to Mercedes to permit it.

[Emag]

Yeah I am not going to continue with this topic anymore. I have seen the difference in deployment myself and I am 90% sure I have heard James Key say something about this exact topic back in 2021 when McLaren switched to Mercedes. He mentioned something about not receiving a "black box" but rather working closely with Mercedes to optimize the power unit for the car/track.

What you describe with the profiles, harvesting and engine braking are a completely different thing to what was being discussed. It makes sense for those to be pre-programmed and quite possibly unalterable.

But deployment maps? No. Customers have different requirements to the factory team and running some default energy deployment maps just wouldn't work. They would be very slow, or extremely limited in setup range. Something that we have not seen. Williams is low drag pretty much everywhere, whereas McLaren is totally the opposite. Mercedes somewhere in-between. Yet they seemingly deploy energy differently throughout a lap. They're not manually switching between modes in qualifying either to explain the difference in SoC during laps between teams.

They almost definitely have different deployment strategies for each track.

I am not disputing what you are saying. I'm sure some teams choose to deploy the energy in one part of the track at a certain rate, and other customers do something different. Of course there is some flexibility to control where the energy is deployed and how much but it is like comparing Apple and App developers for apple devices. They are playing in a sandbox designed by Apple. It is not infinitely flexible, and we know that there are restrictions and rate limits because of the hardware:

Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas are afforded reduced mileage allocations of the higher power modes to protect the engines, as restrictions have tightened for 2018 and each driver must not use more than three engines over the course of the season.

This mileage is dictated by what Mercedes called the "phase document", which defines the limits to which the engines in its works cars, and customer teams Williams and Force India, may be used during each race weekend.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... 4/5321594/

Well the initial argument was that customers somehow don't have any control on how energy is deployed in a lap because that's dictated entirely by the manufacturer. That is just not true. If it was the case, the customers would be forced to run with the same setup as their engine manufacturer every single race.

What you say about the "sandbox" is entirely dictated by how customizable Mercedes makes their power units via their software (which they have to share with the customers and not hold secret settings/modes back). If some parameter is totally unconfigurable because the hardware does not support it, then that's the same limitation for Mercedes too. I also mentioned other constraints that Mercedes could impose on the power unit, and that's fair to assume could penalize customers too. But what was being discussed was strictly the ability to tweak deployment maps and optimize them for their car.

[AR3-GP]

Yeah I am not going to continue with this topic anymore. I have seen the difference in deployment myself and I am 90% sure I have heard James Key say something about this exact topic back in 2021 when McLaren switched to Mercedes. He mentioned something about not receiving a "black box" but rather working closely with Mercedes to optimize the power unit for the car/track.

What you describe with the profiles, harvesting and engine braking are a completely different thing to what was being discussed. It makes sense for those to be pre-programmed and quite possibly unalterable.

But deployment maps? No. Customers have different requirements to the factory team and running some default energy deployment maps just wouldn't work. They would be very slow, or extremely limited in setup range. Something that we have not seen. Williams is low drag pretty much everywhere, whereas McLaren is totally the opposite. Mercedes somewhere in-between. Yet they seemingly deploy energy differently throughout a lap. They're not manually switching between modes in qualifying either to explain the difference in SoC during laps between teams.

They almost definitely have different deployment strategies for each track.

I am not disputing what you are saying. I'm sure some teams choose to deploy the energy in one part of the track at a certain rate, and other customers do something different. Of course there is some flexibility to control where the energy is deployed and how much but it is like comparing Apple and App developers for apple devices. They are playing in a sandbox designed by Apple. It is not infinitely flexible, and we know that there are restrictions and rate limits because of the hardware:

Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas are afforded reduced mileage allocations of the higher power modes to protect the engines, as restrictions have tightened for 2018 and each driver must not use more than three engines over the course of the season.

This mileage is dictated by what Mercedes called the "phase document", which defines the limits to which the engines in its works cars, and customer teams Williams and Force India, may be used during each race weekend.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... 4/5321594/

Well the initial argument was that customers somehow don't have any control on how energy is deployed in a lap because that's dictated entirely by the manufacturer. That is just not true. If it was the case, the customers would be forced to run with the same setup as their engine manufacturer every single race.

What you say about the "sandbox" is entirely dictated by how customizable Mercedes makes their power units via their software (which they have to share with the customers and not hold secret settings/modes back). If some parameter is totally unconfigurable because the hardware does not support it, then that's the same limitation for Mercedes too.

The difference is that the PU is designed for Mercedes so there are fewer "limitations" for Mercedes. If Mclaren has alternative ideas about how energy will be deployed, they are more likely to encounter hardware limitations because they are customer. They don't have priority in the PU design.

[FittingMechanics]

You guys are really debating undebateable.

Obviously if McLaren wanted their engine to puff up purple smoke on the straights, they can't "add that in" but it's unlikely that McLaren as a customer team has ideas that are that different from the engine manufacturer.

[Emag]

The difference is that the PU is designed for what Mercedes would like to do with it. If Mclaren has alternative ideas about how energy will be deployed, they are more likely to encounter hardware limitations because the factory team's interest are the priority when the hardware is developed.

Could you give an example of what a customer would request w.r.t deployment mappings that would not be supported by the hardware (i.e not available for Mercedes themselves too)?

[AR3-GP]

The difference is that the PU is designed for what Mercedes would like to do with it. If Mclaren has alternative ideas about how energy will be deployed, they are more likely to encounter hardware limitations because the factory team's interest are the priority when the hardware is developed.

Could you give an example of what a customer would request w.r.t deployment mappings that would not be supported by the hardware (i.e not available for Mercedes themselves too)?

Is that not addressed here? The "phase document".

Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas are afforded reduced mileage allocations of the higher power modes to protect the engines, as restrictions have tightened for 2018 and each driver must not use more than three engines over the course of the season.

This mileage is dictated by what Mercedes called the "phase document", which defines the limits to which the engines in its works cars, and customer teams Williams and Force India, may be used during each race weekend.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/merce ... 4/5321594/

[Emag]

That's about how long they can maintain sustained top performance for reliability concerns.

"reduced mileage allocations of the higher power modes to protect the engines ... this mileage is dictated by what Mercedes called the phase document"

If McLaren wants an engine that can deliver peak performance all the time without any reliability drawbacks then Mercedes would be right to tell them to f*ck off and build their own engines.

[koolway]

Yeah I am not going to continue with this topic anymore. I have seen the difference in deployment myself and I am 90% sure I have heard James Key say something about this exact topic back in 2021 when McLaren switched to Mercedes. He mentioned something about not receiving a "black box" but rather working closely with Mercedes to optimize the power unit for the car/track.

What you describe with the profiles, harvesting and engine braking are a completely different thing to what was being discussed. It makes sense for those to be pre-programmed and quite possibly unalterable.

But deployment maps? No. Customers have different requirements to the factory team and running some default energy deployment maps just wouldn't work. They would be very slow, or extremely limited in setup range. Something that we have not seen. Williams is low drag pretty much everywhere, whereas McLaren is totally the opposite. Mercedes somewhere in-between. Yet they seemingly deploy energy differently throughout a lap. They're not manually switching between modes in qualifying either to explain the difference in SoC during laps between teams.

They almost definitely have different deployment strategies for each track.

Yes they are switching manually. That’s why they have quick toggles above the gear selectors. (To change bunch of settings without going through 6 different dials and press on +-10/+-1 buttons…

—> “Any alteration of the driver’s inputs may only be commanded by direct, deliberate and primary driver actions. The logged raw signals from the FIA Standard ECU inputs must provide a true representation of the driver’s actions”

So there is no deployment map <along> the track. As any change to the car’s behaviour that stems from an “input” must come from the driver’s direct action and not from an automated system responding to location, time, lap number, GPS or other indirect cues…

The out of the box setting matrix is detailed and versatile enough for any team to let them find their sweet spot within given constraints.
Partnership further allows customer team to request altering “some” specific settings… but those will apply to every other customer team.

[Emag]

Yeah I am not going to continue with this topic anymore. I have seen the difference in deployment myself and I am 90% sure I have heard James Key say something about this exact topic back in 2021 when McLaren switched to Mercedes. He mentioned something about not receiving a "black box" but rather working closely with Mercedes to optimize the power unit for the car/track.

What you describe with the profiles, harvesting and engine braking are a completely different thing to what was being discussed. It makes sense for those to be pre-programmed and quite possibly unalterable.

But deployment maps? No. Customers have different requirements to the factory team and running some default energy deployment maps just wouldn't work. They would be very slow, or extremely limited in setup range. Something that we have not seen. Williams is low drag pretty much everywhere, whereas McLaren is totally the opposite. Mercedes somewhere in-between. Yet they seemingly deploy energy differently throughout a lap. They're not manually switching between modes in qualifying either to explain the difference in SoC during laps between teams.

They almost definitely have different deployment strategies for each track.

Yes they are switching manually. That’s why they have quick toggles above the gear selectors. (To change bunch of settings without going through 6 different dials and press on +-10/+-1 buttons…

—> “Any alteration of the driver’s inputs may only be commanded by direct, deliberate and primary driver actions. The logged raw signals from the FIA Standard ECU inputs must provide a true representation of the driver’s actions”

So there is no deployment map <along> the track. As any change to the car’s behaviour that stems from an “input” must come from the driver’s direct action and not from an automated system responding to location, time, lap number, GPS or other indirect cues…

The out of the box setting matrix is detailed and versatile enough for any team to let them find their sweet spot within given constraints.
Partnership further allows customer team to request altering “some” specific settings… but those will apply to every other customer team.

I am confused what your stance is now, because this is pretty much what I am trying to say.

[koolway]

I am confused what your stance is now, because this is pretty much what I am trying to say.

To simplify it :
Works team build up the different settings (strat 1-16 / hpp 1-16 / …) and logic engine for of what happen with each setting combination.

Customer teams bundle them up into “modes” or quick actions
Mode 1 = strat 3, hpp 7, fuel target -0.7, battery target +0.5,… (eg a draggier aero setup)
Mode 2 = strat 4, hpp 3, etc…

They cannot change what Strat 4 does. But in conjunction with (eg : fuel target) they can fine tune it in order to be activated by the driver on specific straights, etc.
As these settings combination will alter the behaviour in a way that is predictable with the help of the works engineer.

The point is “Strat 4” is the same for Mercedes, McLaren, Williams, Aston… but any combinaison in which it’s used is team choice.
As the rules specify : all team using the same engine can mimic/use the same setting as another team.
i.e. Williams can’t operate the engine in a way that only themselves can (rewrite a custom Strat 4).

In other words : everybody get the same application. But teams decide on the look and feel within the constraint of predefined parameters