2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

Pace on hards looks better. Lando in free air is running similar 2-3 tenths slower than Mercedes. Or at least he used to run. Seems his pace is dropping off somewhat. Could be only P6 at the end. Max seems to be catching.

Lando is 1 second a lap slower than the Mercs since the pitstops.

True. I seemed to have checked the laptimes at the exact lap that Norris did well and Mercedes did not.

Norris front left looks very bad.

[Szabi1112]

We are clearly 4th fastest team.

[chengzhongyi2013]

Long season ahead!
Don't put your expectations too high.

[proteus]

We are clearly 4th fastest team.

What else to expect if the sport has a wind tunnel alocation rules at reg change from a standings of a previous season.

[McFAN]

Lando doing really well holding off Max

[Darth-Piekus]

First race of the season and we can safely say we are 3rd fastest team.

[chengzhongyi2013]

Lando doing really well holding off Max

Yeah…
Small victory in the grand scheme of things
But will take each small victory as it comes

[Danzo84]

Id say 4th fastest, the redbull is slightly ahead of mclaren, mercedes and ferrari are in another league

[McFAN]

Lando doing really well holding off Max

Yeah…
Small victory in the grand scheme of things
But will take each small victory as it comes

That's the spirit

[proteus]

First race of the season and we can safely say we are 3rd fastest team.

RedBull is probably infront.

[FittingMechanics]

First race of the season and we can safely say we are 3rd fastest team.

How can you safely say that, Max almost caught us and Hadjar was ahead. I think in this race we were 4th fastest team. But I'm confident they can improve.

China is a sprint so not sure how much you can do there. Then in Japan they need to work well because Bahrain and Saudi will likely be cancelled and then Miami and Canada are sprints and then Monaco.

So after Japan, first normal race is Barcelona in June.

[Darth-Piekus]

How did we lose Piastri and Hadjar?

[f1Follower]

Does anyone in the McLaren think that Mercedes is using compression ratio trick in their engine? If not then what was the point of starting the tests for engine from June 1st why not from 1st March and be done with the legality of their engine from start

[McFAN]

Oscar spun out on the outlap

[trinidefender]

First race of the season and we can safely say we are 3rd fastest team.

Probably 4th. Had max qualified closer to where he should have then he'd probably have been ahead.

It's still not a sure thing because I get the impression that car performance will be very track specific this year and McLaren does seem to be out of sync with their updates compared to the other teams. Their car looks very similar to Barcelona test whilst almost every other team looks vastly different.

When McLaren bring a big package and/or drop a lot of weight that should help a lot. Consider that every other team has already brought their first set of updates and McLaren hasn't.