2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[Swed3121]

FP2 looked better

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HOAUd5EXEAA ... =4096x4096

And still half a second off the Ferrari

[Macklaren]

Merc teams better be sandbagging for reliability

[FittingMechanics]

Norris was one of the first to put on softs.
Mercedes and Piastri had their runs interrupted due to red flag. Mercedes (at least Kimi) were quick in S1 before red flag.
Ferrari was last one out and had clean runs.

Very hard to say anything except I think Red Bull is behind.

[CjC]

Norris was going quicker on a second push lap…

[Macklaren]

race pace looked bad though

[CjC]

I’ve seen some figure compared to Russell and Lando was a tenth off. The others had shorter stints which made their averages look better

[SilviuAgo]

race pace looked bad though

Compared to whom?





LONG RUNS IN HUNGARY FP2
MEDIUM
VER: 1:24.447
RUS: 1:24.528 (+0.081s)
NOR: 1:24.702 (+0.255s)
HAM: 1:24.835 (+0.388s)
PIA: 1:25.499 (+1.052s)
OCO: 1:26.213 (+1.765s)
GAS: 1:26.356 (+1.908s)
BEA: 1:26.554 (+2.106s)
BOT: 1:27.976 (+3.528s)



ANT and LEC doing (short) runs on Softs. Lando the only one with 10 Medium laps (vs VER or HAM 5 or RUS 9)
Imo McLaren is not looking bad. Considering that, vs Ferrari, Mercedes or RedBull, they had more job to do with the upgrades and understanding the updated package. Plus one session with Oscar replaced. We saw the impact that this had also on Mercedes, where ANT finished P 13 the second free practice after he gave his place to Vesti for FP1.

[venkyhere]

Went through the lap plots for Q sim run by the 'big 4' :

Mercedes - car was out of balance and after correction, couldn't run due to red flag, so 'unkown'

McLaren - 'showed their hand' the most

Redbull - hiding straightline speed, and not deploying the full quota

Ferrari - hiding the most by not deploying full quota, in spite of that, Sector3 is spectacular, leagues ahead of the others, by atleast -0.25s in this shortest sector.

[SilviuAgo]

If Lando can find a solution for the last corner, we have a good chance tomorrow, for a good starting position.

[SilviuAgo]

Speaking about last corner approach, and where Lando lost +0.3 vs Ferrari's, could also new track surface to have an impact?

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri said that it made things very tricky for drivers.

"The track surface is quite bizarre in a couple of places," he said. "In the new bits, where it's worn away and they've added in some strips of tarmac, it's quite inconsistent."

The bigger issue is at the final corner though where the surface is coming away on the racing line so forcing drivers wide.




Some repair work had been completed ahead of this weekend – like at Turn 1 as seen above – which appears to have held up so far.

We all know also Oscar's issues with low grip tracks. And most of the drivers mentioned that driving on new surfaces is like driving on ice.

[De Wet]

Looking positive in FP3.

[Mansell89]

Much better session, as expected.

Has Oscar got the upgrade now too or not?

[Mcl_G10]

Lando so good at Hungary.

Will be nip and tuck but ferrari are so fast in sector 3.

[geogate]

nice to see at top of P3 timing, its been a while. Dont expect miracles but hope to see both cars in top 5 and not too far off pole. That would be a win for these upgrades

[Macklaren]

It's on for pole, boys and girls! Feels like I haven't said that all year