2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[Darth-Piekus]

Vowles said he feels there is 3 tenths from the PU optimization alone. If that number is accurate and applies to McLaren as well that would be P3 in Melbourne. Race pace was still bad, mainly from graining but 3 tenths would help bridge the gap.

Hopefully we see some improvement in China, both on track and with the comments.

Btw customer teams should work together to figure this out.

It's not just the optimization. With an optimized engine you can make various other changes to the chassis and wings and thus changing your tyre degradation levels, drag and downforce so it is definitely more than 3 tenths.

[FittingMechanics]

Vowles said he feels there is 3 tenths from the PU optimization alone. If that number is accurate and applies to McLaren as well that would be P3 in Melbourne. Race pace was still bad, mainly from graining but 3 tenths would help bridge the gap.

Hopefully we see some improvement in China, both on track and with the comments.

Btw customer teams should work together to figure this out.

It's not just the optimization. With an optimized engine you can make various other changes to the chassis and wings and thus changing your tyre degradation levels, drag and downforce so it is definitely more than 3 tenths.

Maybe Vowles counted that in, we don't know, but yeah, could be.

It would be good to overtake Red Bull pace wise before any big upgrades and then challenge the top teams after the upgrade (podiums, at least occasional wins). That would be a good season in my opinion.

[De Wet]

Honda are also a reason for these PU rules.

Should F1 move away from European AND Asian car companies and just use.... Presumably American ones??

Never mind that the vast majority of the sport's teams and staff are in Europe. That several of the biggest car companies in the world are Asian and European?

Your comment makes no sense at all.

Move away from all car manufacturers. EU are just much worse than the others with Electrical BS.

There are more than enough engine suppliers worldwide to make F1 great again.

If the car manufacturers want to be in F1 it must be on F1's terms. Money/Greed and Corruption are just too prevalent in these big corporations.

Yes, they're so greedy that they're willing to spend hundreds of millions on developing Power Units for F1.....

I can't see many independent engine manufactures willing, or even able, to spend a tenth of that....

It comes with so many strings attached that it's simply not worth it. F1 Is Not F1 Anymore.

End of the discussion for me.

[Darth-Piekus]

Vowles said he feels there is 3 tenths from the PU optimization alone. If that number is accurate and applies to McLaren as well that would be P3 in Melbourne. Race pace was still bad, mainly from graining but 3 tenths would help bridge the gap.

Hopefully we see some improvement in China, both on track and with the comments.

Btw customer teams should work together to figure this out.

It's not just the optimization. With an optimized engine you can make various other changes to the chassis and wings and thus changing your tyre degradation levels, drag and downforce so it is definitely more than 3 tenths.

Maybe Vowles counted that in, we don't know, but yeah, could be.

It would be good to overtake Red Bull pace wise before any big upgrades and then challenge the top teams after the upgrade (podiums, at least occasional wins). That would be a good season in my opinion.

What I am curious to see is how fast can Mclaren learn that engine as good as Mercedes to gain back all that lost time combined with upgrades.

[basti313]

It's not just the optimization. With an optimized engine you can make various other changes to the chassis and wings and thus changing your tyre degradation levels, drag and downforce so it is definitely more than 3 tenths.

Maybe Vowles counted that in, we don't know, but yeah, could be.

It would be good to overtake Red Bull pace wise before any big upgrades and then challenge the top teams after the upgrade (podiums, at least occasional wins). That would be a good season in my opinion.

What I am curious to see is how fast can Mclaren learn that engine as good as Mercedes to gain back all that lost time combined with upgrades.

No.
I think this is the point that many here also did not understand when we discussed the chances last year. I always said, that last year was the only shot at the title. Now Merc has the upper hand again.
And this will go on with every single update: Middle of this year, start of next season, start of the following season...
Merc will always literally throw a new engine at the customers at FP1 in Australia. This is what they are allowed by the rules.

[AR3-GP]

Thursday in China:

there's been discussions about the power unit, teams that are not mercedes. do you feel that it's only the software side or also the chassis for you?

lando: “no, it's both [..] It's understanding of powe unit. We haven't done as good of a job as we should have done. So our own unsderstanding is not to the level that we want it to be at and we'll work very hard to improve that. No I said the The chassis it not to the level that we want it to be at. It's certainly not bad, not miles away, but we need to improve it more. We know where we're stronger, where we're weaker. Our our tyre management was pretty tricky last weekend in melbourne and might be quite tricky again here with the graining. so we kind of need to improve a little bit of everything, honestly. it wasn't just one thing or just the other, both our car and our understanding of the power unit needs to improve, and the team have done a lot of work on that to try and do well this weekend”

[AR3-GP]

“you said last week that ferrari is probably the best car of the grid at the moment. what are the things that you still need to work on to close that gap?”

lando: “in a simple way, it's just more downforce, more load, which just allows us to do a lot of things better. but it's just very easy to make mistakes at the minute, and even when we feel like we do a perfect corner, we're still not quite quick enough compared to them in some corners. so we just need to develop the car more, and the team back in mtc are working very hard on doing this.”

“but yeah, creating a car that's just a little bit more drivable for us as drivers, a little bit more forgiving, which is tricky, but the main thing is just more downforce, which is more grip. makes our life easier”

https://x.com/ln4norris/status/2032018331411075556

[CjC]

Maybe Vowles counted that in, we don't know, but yeah, could be.

It would be good to overtake Red Bull pace wise before any big upgrades and then challenge the top teams after the upgrade (podiums, at least occasional wins). That would be a good season in my opinion.

What I am curious to see is how fast can Mclaren learn that engine as good as Mercedes to gain back all that lost time combined with upgrades.

No.
I think this is the point that many here also did not understand when we discussed the chances last year. I always said, that last year was the only shot at the title. Now Merc has the upper hand again.
And this will go on with every single update: Middle of this year, start of next season, start of the following season...
Merc will always literally throw a new engine at the customers at FP1 in Australia. This is what they are allowed by the rules.

It only takes a change of date for the homologation to stop this scenario.

[basti313]

What I am curious to see is how fast can Mclaren learn that engine as good as Mercedes to gain back all that lost time combined with upgrades.

No.
I think this is the point that many here also did not understand when we discussed the chances last year. I always said, that last year was the only shot at the title. Now Merc has the upper hand again.
And this will go on with every single update: Middle of this year, start of next season, start of the following season...
Merc will always literally throw a new engine at the customers at FP1 in Australia. This is what they are allowed by the rules.

It only takes a change of date for the homologation to stop this scenario.

Yes, that is also what I think would be much more fair at least.

And I do not think it has any downsides. I doubt that anything learned in the February tests changed anything on the homologation on 1st of March.

On the other hand....if they know the cooling spec at the first test....this is still much too late.

Only good thing is that the leaps between these updated will be smaller and smaller.

[f1Follower]

With the current regulations Mercedes will always have an edge as it is engine manufacturer against McLaren. Is it the case that at one point McLaren will think to have another manufacturer more like Honda and AMR kind of deal.

The reason is that they will always be second best against Mercedes even with a good chassis

[AR3-GP]

Well said. These regulations are not correct for F1.

You're driving the power unit, you're not driving the car to the same limit," Norris said. "It's not like, 'go and drive the car the quickest way possible.' That's not how it works. 
"It's a very different style of driving that's needed. It's basically forget everything you've ever done and reset."

Norris used the Pouhon section of the beloved Spa-Francorchamps circuit to make his point.

"I think you can still make a difference as a driver by driving the power unit in the correct way, but not by necessarily driving the car in a much better way. You're not going to go into Pouhon now and see who has the biggest balls. You're just going to see who can lift at the correct point and use the amount of throttle that you have to use, that doesn't use the power, that doesn't use the battery and those kind of things."

Norris said the sport's new generation are a long way away from what he dreamed of racing as a kid.

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/48181338/lando-norris-hits-f1-cars-grew-wanting-drive-chinese-grand-prix-2026

[Emag]

Well said. These regulations are not correct for F1.

You're driving the power unit, you're not driving the car to the same limit," Norris said. "It's not like, 'go and drive the car the quickest way possible.' That's not how it works. 
"It's a very different style of driving that's needed. It's basically forget everything you've ever done and reset."

Norris used the Pouhon section of the beloved Spa-Francorchamps circuit to make his point.

"I think you can still make a difference as a driver by driving the power unit in the correct way, but not by necessarily driving the car in a much better way. You're not going to go into Pouhon now and see who has the biggest balls. You're just going to see who can lift at the correct point and use the amount of throttle that you have to use, that doesn't use the power, that doesn't use the battery and those kind of things."

Norris said the sport's new generation are a long way away from what he dreamed of racing as a kid.

https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/48181338/lando-norris-hits-f1-cars-grew-wanting-drive-chinese-grand-prix-2026

Having slower cars is 100 times better than changing the game completely to a regeneration-based formula.
Watching drivers doing LiCo on a Q3 run is just wrong for F1. If it's impossible to fully fix for this season they better react and do something about it for next year. It's damn horrible if they continue like this.

[SmallSoldier]

With the current regulations Mercedes will always have an edge as it is engine manufacturer against McLaren. Is it the case that at one point McLaren will think to have another manufacturer more like Honda and AMR kind of deal.

The reason is that they will always be second best against Mercedes even with a good chassis

That’s what everyone said going into the last set of regulations… 2 WCC and the #1 on Norris’ car beg to differ.

McLaren can best Mercedes, done it already… Won’t be easy, but not impossible… If the Mercedes engine is the best in the field, it doesn’t matter if you are works team… Your best chance at winning will always be with the best / most reliable engine, regardless of work status

[upsidedowntoast]

With the current regulations Mercedes will always have an edge as it is engine manufacturer against McLaren. Is it the case that at one point McLaren will think to have another manufacturer more like Honda and AMR kind of deal.

The reason is that they will always be second best against Mercedes even with a good chassis

That’s what everyone said going into the last set of regulations… 2 WCC and the #1 on Norris’ car beg to differ.

McLaren can best Mercedes, done it already… Won’t be easy, but not impossible… If the Mercedes engine is the best in the field, it doesn’t matter if you are works team… Your best chance at winning will always be with the best / most reliable engine, regardless of work status

In the last set of regs, engine design had already been frozen for several years, negating Mercedes' advantage of knowledge of its own engine.

Mclaren is capable of beating Mercedes but they need time to understand the current engine so that they can use it efficiently and optimize their aero around it. If the engines are still evolving (as they are in this reg set) they will be time-disadvantaged compared to the works team. I expect Mclaren to get stronger towards the end of the year/regset as the knowledge gap closes and inseason development picks up.

In order words being a works team *does* matter, and it'll matter most at the start of a new regset. It will matter less as time goes on.

[SmallSoldier]

With the current regulations Mercedes will always have an edge as it is engine manufacturer against McLaren. Is it the case that at one point McLaren will think to have another manufacturer more like Honda and AMR kind of deal.

The reason is that they will always be second best against Mercedes even with a good chassis

That’s what everyone said going into the last set of regulations… 2 WCC and the #1 on Norris’ car beg to differ.

McLaren can best Mercedes, done it already… Won’t be easy, but not impossible… If the Mercedes engine is the best in the field, it doesn’t matter if you are works team… Your best chance at winning will always be with the best / most reliable engine, regardless of work status

In the last set of regs, engine design had already been frozen for several years, negating Mercedes' advantage of knowledge of its own engine.

Mclaren is capable of beating Mercedes but they need time to understand the current engine so that they can use it efficiently and optimize their aero around it. If the engines are still evolving (as they are in this reg set) they will be time-disadvantaged compared to the works team. I expect Mclaren to get stronger towards the end of the year/regset as the knowledge gap closes and inseason development picks up.

In order words being a works team *does* matter, and it'll matter most at the start of a new regset. It will matter less as time goes on.

I don’t disagree with you… But saying that the only way for McLaren to win again is to become a works Team is simply a fallacy… Also, the current engine are a “revolution” not an evolution… a lot to be learned in that regards and that’s creating the gaps we saw in Melbourne, which by the way is only one race, one point of data… Further iterations of the PU will be most probably evolutions and therefore the Team won’t have the steep learning curve they have now.

Been a works can be helpful, but it’s not a must have ingredient in the recipe for success… Ferrari has been a Works Team forever and they haven’t won a WCC in almost 2 decades… Making it a condition for success in the sport to have works team status is simply a mistake.