2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[De Wet]

Sensible approach as usual by Stella. Both races are the sprint nonsense again.

[emp]

Now that is some credible piece of info from a journalist regarding upgrades.

Not some tweet from a random f1 twitter account quoting a commentator about the gossip from the paddock.

[Darth-Piekus]

So the aerodynamic upgrades. Is it two full upgrades over the whole car or is it like half and half over two gps?

[Waz]

What's this news of Andrea Stella signing a pre-contract with Ferrari

But even if he moves, these teams are not dependent on one person.

It's weird that people still say this, while there is an objective improvement in operations since Stella took over.

If any one person can make a difference, it's the Team Principal.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

So the aerodynamic upgrades. Is it two full upgrades over the whole car or is it like half and half over two gps?

Must be one upgrade package over two weekends. No way they introduce a new package only to then replace it at the very next race.

[Seerix]

Filming day would make a lot of sense if they are planning to introduce big upgrades in Miami and Canada, both being sprint races unfortunately. Ferrari and RedBull were both filming today, I wonder if McLaren has something planned.

[Darth-Piekus]

Any idea of what the upgrades are gonna be and the visual changes?

[f1Follower]

Filming day would make a lot of sense if they are planning to introduce big upgrades in Miami and Canada, both being sprint races unfortunately. Ferrari and RedBull were both filming today, I wonder if McLaren has something planned.

The team will need to finalize the upgrade and bring the parts. Also both Miami and Canada being America races they need to shipped earlier so they have spares

[SilviuAgo]

McLaren tease "entirely new MCL40" car for North American F1 races
https://www.crash.net/f1/news/1093294/1 ... n-f1-races

“In our intent, there was always the idea to deliver sort of a completely new car, especially from an aerodynamic upgrades point of view, for the North American races,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella told media including Crash.net on Wednesday. 

" I could say overall that across Miami and Canada, we will see an entirely new MCL40." 

[Ground Effect]

So the aerodynamic upgrades. Is it two full upgrades over the whole car or is it like half and half over two gps?

Must be one upgrade package over two weekends. No way they introduce a new package only to then replace it at the very next race.

I think it'll be split in two parts as well, but that said, Racing Bulls is doing a double upgrade. They'll introduce new parts, race them in Miami and some of those parts will be replaced in Montreal. So one can't be 100% certain what McLaren will do exactly.

[Seerix]

Miami Grand Prix Free Practice 1 extended to 90 mins - 30 more minutes likely won't mean much, but it's better than nothing. I just hope they can have problem free running (looking at you, NOR garage).

[SmallSoldier]

So the aerodynamic upgrades. Is it two full upgrades over the whole car or is it like half and half over two gps?

Must be one upgrade package over two weekends. No way they introduce a new package only to then replace it at the very next race.

I think it'll be split in two parts as well, but that said, Racing Bulls is doing a double upgrade. They'll introduce new parts, race them in Miami and some of those parts will be replaced in Montreal. So one can't be 100% certain what McLaren will do exactly.

I would be Very surprised if the Team decides to deploy parts for one race and replace them the next in within the Budget Cap era… With the Budget Cap, parts are considered as “expensed” once they are used, even if for testing purposes… Bringing parts to discard them right after would be extremely wasteful.

The Team will separate the package in 2… most probably looking at parts that work together (for example, new floor, floor edge, diffuser, brake duct fences and engine cover which usually work together in one GP and Front Wing / Rear Wing on the next GP.

The reason why they are bringing them in steps instead of a complete package in one race is to understand the impact of those parts… If they deploy the new package at the same time and they have correlation issues or the performance is not as expected, it would be harder to pinpoint at the culprit… Bringing the upgrades in stages, allows them to validate those parts in isolation and reducing the amount of variables, it’s the smart approach.

[SilviuAgo]

when you already made the order with no refund ))) Celebrating 1000GP at race 997 is hilarious.

[jacme22]

With the next race in Miami a week away, followed by the Canadian Grand Prix three weeks later, speaking to the media, including RacingNews365, Stella said: "Our intent was always to deliver sort of a completely new car, especially from an aerodynamic upgrades point of view, for the North American races.

"The fact that the calendar changed helped a little, like, I'm sure it helped all the other teams that could work more streamlined towards upgrading the car, rather than being busy with racing.

"I can say that, overall, across Miami and Canada, we will see an entirely new MCL40. Again, I would like to stress that this is what I would expect of most of our competitors."

https://racingnews365.com/mclaren-f1-ri ... ew-car-vow

[CjC]

Papaya rules gets a lot of stick but this is a good clip from Oscar giving a brief insight into the relationship/ dynamic.