2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[FittingMechanics]

Looking at that chart, looks like the team may be in the fight with Ferrari. That would be pretty good start of the year, fighting for position of second best team. For a team that brought no big visible upgrades since the shakedown that is quite good.

From their statements I think they expect their next package to be a big step forward. They are not being cautious at all.

[AR3-GP]

They are replacing Lando's energy store, again.

[Macklaren]

The reliability issues are getting quite tiresome. I don't that the team is screwing up. It's also hard to believe that almost every bad HPP part has somehow ended up at McLaren

[chengzhongyi2013]

Encouraging signs on the single-lap pace (at least from Oscar).
Not too confident for the race though.

[Jdn1327]

Merc gave mclaren the party mode for q3...hahaha. well done Oscar. Good lap. I think lando didn't have enough track time to be a threat.

[FittingMechanics]

Good job to the team. Very close to having clean P3, P4 on merit. Norris with less issues during the weekend would surely be ahead of Leclerc.

Hoping for good start and pace tomorrow. For a podium they need to match Ferrari starts.

Btw not bad for a baseline car with no upgrades since shakedown.

[Darth-Piekus]

I dont think Lando, Stella and Zack were exaggerating when they predicted wins very soon. If we can find half a second on that car over rivals Mercedes and Ferrari over the next large upgrade we will be unstoppable.

[Emag]

Lando is having a horrible time at the moment. Hasn't managed a clean representative practice session for a while. A shame though, he was closer to Oscar in FP3. They have to dial in these software quirks, because being that much slower at the end there with both cars makes no sense.

[mwillems]

Good job to the team. Very close to having clean P3, P4 on merit. Norris with less issues during the weekend would surely be ahead of Leclerc.

Hoping for good start and pace tomorrow. For a podium they need to match Ferrari starts.

Btw not bad for a baseline car with no upgrades since shakedown.

And there is still more learning from the engine, they will get closer.

I was clear from Day 1 that a fair portion of the difference was engine learning and that I thought the cars relatively close beyond that.

We are very much positioned to develop and then challenge for wins, the team have done a good job considering how much more time Merc had to develop both in months and cfd and tunnel time.

Absolutely great job by the team.

[_cerber1]

We are the only ones left with two Hard and one Medium, I wonder if it will be M+H or M+H+H.

[willmesquita]

I dont think Lando, Stella and Zack were exaggerating when they predicted wins very soon. If we can find half a second on that car over rivals Mercedes and Ferrari over the next large upgrade we will be unstoppable.

Our long run pace needs to improve more than half a sec tough.

[CjC]

They are getting closer.
Reliability is a serious concern though.
Even if Oscar piped them to pole and had a half decent long run in FP2 (which he didn’t) I wouldn’t get my hopes up for even a podium due to the bizarre reliability woes.

[Macklaren]

Btw I'm very proud of the positive, constructive and optimistic attitude from everyone in here, even if we aren't winning. Unlike some other team groups where even if the team is challenging for the win, the fan base gets caught up in driver vs driver battles or complaining about something

[De Wet]

Who supply our batteries ?

[Mansell89]

Not in a bad place at all at the moment - considering Mercedes has what must be the best part of 1000 laps on us in optimising the PU, the fact that even our baseline car, which we know has development potential, is within half a second isn’t bad at all.

Race pace for sure needs work but that will come with development and banked laps.

The fact we’ve put a car out in the ballpark of the two top works teams suggests our correlation from sim/windtunnel etc is translating to track so I’m intrigued to see if we can go head to head in development with Merc and Ferrari.

Missing Saudi and Bahrain is a double edged sword - we lose the laps and learning but we don’t lose more points to Merc and Ferrari whilst they have that initial advantage in performance on us.