2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[Artur Craft]

Nice to see Mclaren this quick again and what a mega pace from Lando all weekend. Zandvoort should suit the car too

[SilviuAgo]

Do not exaggerate now the outcome. It wasn't Lando drive, or the car, or the upgrades.
For sure was Will that did it again.



Letting the joke aside, today was a Masterpiece drive from Lando! Even Max at the end was impressed by Lando's rhythm in clean air. And Max is not an easy guy to impress.
Well done Lando, well done to all the girls and boys at McLaren for their hard work.

And I let you to enjoy the Sunday with our World Champion. Cheers to all!

[FittingMechanics]

Could have been so different if one of the ferrari had got past Verstapen early on.

I really don't think Ferrari had pace to challenge. On hards they couldn't match Verstappen.

[101FlyingDutchman]

Could have been so different if one of the ferrari had got past Verstapen early on.

I really don't think Ferrari had pace to challenge. On hards they couldn't match Verstappen.

They had the pace but chewing through the tyres way quicker.

NOR has been by far the quicker MCL driver all weekend. That’s why I couldn’t believe the indecisive nature of the pit wall. You need 1.0s plus pace advantage to pull off an overtake. So this needed a pit wall intervention asap. As it turned out, the early stop from PIA (and SAI blindness) solved their conundrum but it shouldn’t have relied on a bit of luck. They should have been honest with PIA and given him a chance to try and match NOR pace & if the difference was under 5sec on the last lap re-swapped positions.

[AR3-GP]

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[Macklaren]

But there's something still off about Mclaren pit wall. They are sleeping too much. Lando was much faster than Oscar. It could have cost them the race and they would have looked silly when Piastri retired and Lando didn't win. That is why you never allow the slower driver to hold up the faster one. You need to build gaps when you have pace to defend from race chaos and mistakes that cost time. Mclaren claim to be "team first" yet they are never making decisions that benefit the team. It's bizarre. Same story in Qatar last year.

Oh please... They can't win either way. There are already trolls claiming that Oscar was robbed. They would have been torched if they had swapped

[geogate]

cant agree with that. Oscar took the lead fair and square, they should race fair and square. There are limited circumstances when you do that kind of thing - today wasnt one of them. I dont believe Ferrari or Mercedes would do that either. We have seen both of them not do that this year already

[Swed3121]

A few more races like this and we might seriously need to start asking questions if a Sainz or similar (or potentially Verstappen) might be a better option for next year.

[AR3-GP]

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[avantman]

I dont believe Ferrari or Mercedes would do that either. We have seen both of them not do that this year already

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/merc ... /10840549/

Mercedes might enforce team orders if Kimi Antonelli and George Russell risk losing victory due to their wheel-to-wheel action, its Formula 1 team principal Toto Wolff stated.

However, the team boss did make it clear that Mercedes couldn’t afford to let a Barcelona-style scenario happen again.
“Since Barcelona, we would in any case always give preference to the race victory. And if it meant that Kimi or George were ahead, this is what we would do.

There wasn’t _any_ wheel to wheel action between the Mclaren cars today.

[AR3-GP]

It was a small thing. I don't want to derail the thread with that. Mclaren had a very good day.

[Swed3121]

cant agree with that. Oscar took the lead fair and square, they should race fair and square. There are limited circumstances when you do that kind of thing - today wasnt one of them. I dont believe Ferrari or Mercedes would do that either. We have seen both of them not do that this year already

So your happy to potentially cost us a win just to keep it fair between a world champion and his teammate that can’t stay within 1sec of his lap times, what a joke, this team needs to sort itself out and realise that Piastri just isn’t what they originally thought, give it a year and we will be right back in the Ricciardo situation.

[AR3-GP]

Not my intention, let's just drop it.

[Ground Effect]

Not sure why folks on here expect McLaren to order a driver legitimately leading a Grand Prix to move aside for a team mate. We're not talking about asking a driver to give aside to allow a team mate try and catch a car ahead, but to actually relinquish a race lead? That would be awful and just plain wrong and probably goes against what the driver has in his contract. There was no clear indication that Oscar was at serious risk of losing the win, they were covering whoever needed to be covered so what was the actual problem? The best they could do was what they did, give Lando a slightly different strategy without Oscar being moved out of the way or losing pit priority.

[Swed3121]

Not sure why folks on here expect McLaren to order a driver legitimately leading a Grand Prix to move aside for a team mate. We're not talking about asking a driver to give aside to allow a team mate try and catch a car ahead, but to actually relinquish a race lead? That would be awful and just plain wrong and probably goes against what the driver has in his contract. There was no clear indication that Oscar was at serious risk of losing the win, they were covering whoever needed to be covered so what was the actual problem? The best they could do was what they did, give Lando a slightly different strategy without Oscar being moved out of the way or losing pit priority.

Nobody is suggesting an on track swap, what almost everyone is saying is that the whole first on track get first pit needs to be gotten rid of, Norris is clear as day the number 1 driver and deserves to be treated as such, I.e preferential strategy calls etc.