2026 McLaren Mastercard F1 Team

[Mcl_G10]

Why are people talking like McLaren had no choice. This race has an 80% chance of a safety car (according to commentary) and even higher with the extra issues these new cars have. Knowing that he would have been better starting on softs or mediums.

Why start on hards on a track with an almost guaranteed early safety car?

Nobody is questioning the tyre strategy.

This is about the poor stop and also whether the stop should have come along few laps sooner.

Ferrari and others benefitted from a vsc which could come at anytime but it didnt for mclaren and lando

[Ground Effect]

Wtf are they doing with lando here?

All the hard work early in the race ruined

So obviously, Will Courtney is a double agent, because what exactly are they even doing?

Not sure what would you do? They knew it will be hard to claw back the positions if they pit so they went longer hoping for a SC/VSC or a red flag. It didn't work out. It happens.

Hadjar finished ahead of Lando. 5 second delay in the pits or not, that shouldn't have happened.

[Ben1980]

Without the pitsop issue and pitting 3 laps sooner lando would have been in the fight for p3

How? He couldn't pull back 10s on Hadjar, he wouldnt have pulled back more than that on Max.

6th was always the best. Tge mediums didnt have the performance advantage

[blastdoman]

Regardless of the pit stop error, Red Bull once again had a better strategy than McLaren, getting rid of the medium tire at the start of the race to comfortably play with the hard compounds for the rest of it. Lando, wanting to stop only once, was hurt by the Virtual Safety Cars as he had to stretch the hard tire as much as possible

[Ben1980]

Wtf are they doing with lando here?

All the hard work early in the race ruined

So obviously, Will Courtney is a double agent, because what exactly are they even doing?

Not sure what would you do? They knew it will be hard to claw back the positions if they pit so they went longer hoping for a SC/VSC or a red flag. It didn't work out. It happens.

Hadjar finished ahead of Lando. 5 second delay in the pits or not, that shouldn't have happened.

It only happened because of the pit delay or it doesn't happen. Not sure if Mclaren had the tryes to do what Hadjar did.

But, the mediums weren't that good out there. Why Lando looked strong at the start.

[Ben1980]

Regardless of the pit stop error, Red Bull once again had a better strategy than McLaren, getting rid of the medium tire at the start of the race to comfortably play with the hard compounds for the rest of it. Lando, wanting to stop only once, was hurt by the Virtual Safety Cars as he had to stretch the hard tire as much as possible

The hard was the best tyre. If Lando does the sane as Hadjar he likely comes 6th at best anyway assuming they had a new Hard.

[SilviuAgo]

Amazing drive from Lando today, but is not enough when you have a brilliant strategy waiting for laps to pass and on top of it a wonderful 8 seconds pit stop as a reminder of the 2025 year. I don't know what it needs for McLaren to have a proper strategy department. Or to trade all they have with Hannah )))

[Ben1980]

Why are people talking like McLaren had no choice. This race has an 80% chance of a safety car (according to commentary) and even higher with the extra issues these new cars have. Knowing that he would have been better starting on softs or mediums.

Why start on hards on a track with an almost guaranteed early safety car?

Nobody is questioning the tyre strategy.

This is about the poor stop and also whether the stop should have come along few laps sooner.

Ferrari and others benefitted from a vsc which could come at anytime but it didnt for mclaren and lando

The hard tyre was the best tyre. They probably had to go as far as possible on them anyway.

[Ben1980]

Amazing drive from Lando today, but is not enough when you have a brilliant strategy waiting for laps to pass and on top of it a wonderful 8 seconds pit stop as a reminder of the 2025 year. I don't know what it needs for McLaren to have a proper strategy department. Or to trade all they have with Hannah )))

What strategy gets better than 6th today?

[Mcl_G10]

Without the pitsop issue and pitting 3 laps sooner lando would have been in the fight for p3

How? He couldn't pull back 10s on Hadjar, he wouldnt have pulled back more than that on Max.

6th was always the best. Tge mediums didnt have the performance advantage

Lando finished 12.5 seconds behind max. If he didnt loose the 5 sec from the stop and also would have stopped 3 laps sooner (he was losing over 1 seconds per lap) then he was there in the mix at the end

[CjC]

So obviously, Will Courtney is a double agent, because what exactly are they even doing?

Doesn’t he still work under Randeep Singh though?

Will may want to implement sharper strategy but if higher up the chain of
command won’t listen to him then it won’t happen.

[Darth-Piekus]

One thing I never understood is why not changing during the 2nd VSC? Lando had enough speed to fight even for first. He wasnt far.

[Ben1980]

Without the pitsop issue and pitting 3 laps sooner lando would have been in the fight for p3

How? He couldn't pull back 10s on Hadjar, he wouldnt have pulled back more than that on Max.

6th was always the best. Tge mediums didnt have the performance advantage

Lando finished 12.5 seconds behind max. If he didnt loose the 5 sec from the stop and also would have stopped 3 laps sooner (he was losing over 1 seconds per lap) then he was there in the mix at the end

What was his lap time difference to Max through the stint? At best, its would have been 18 seconds or so over 14 laps? Considering at times he was not much more than half a second over Hadjar with much much newer tyres.
Think people are over estimating the medium performance.

Its why Lando looked close at tge start, he was on the best tyre.

[Ben1980]

One thing I never understood is why not changing during the 2nd VSC? Lando had enough speed to fight even for first. He wasnt far.

The mediums were not a good tyre and 22 laps on them wasnt really a benefit.

[Ben1980]

Lap 28 lando was under a second ahead of Max. If he stops and its fine, hes appx 18 seconds behind with 16 laps to go. The mediums didnt have that advantage. Within 4 laps he only gained half a second on Hadjar.

I know its nice to find fault, but not really sure tgere was anything better, apart from the pit problem.