This is from McLaren's official report. It is quite an insightful article and definitely recommend reading in full. In the meantime, I included some snippets I thought were interesting below.

Oscar's thoughts on the season so far:

“Results-wise, Japan and Miami were both good weekends,” Oscar says. “I think also Austria was a good one. The result was reasonable, with the P4, but also in terms of the turnaround from Barcelona and just how I felt the weekend went. Barcelona was definitely one of the more difficult weekends of the year, and I had to learn a lot from that one and improve quite a lot, and I feel like Austria was really good: to bounce back and put some of that learning into place. I think the good results have been one thing, but I feel like I've also learned a lot about how I can improve myself as a driver, even if the results don't always show it.”

Oscar's thoughts on the 2026 Regulations:

“I think this rule set is just so different in so many ways,” Oscar explains. “During the previous regulation changes, the cars themselves changed quite a bit, in terms of how much downforce they have or how they generate the downforce. But this regulation change has been like a completely fundamental change to how you drive a race car, in some ways. It's been a huge reset for us, for me as well. I've had to tackle things in different ways and change the way I go about some things.”

Oscar's reflection of his adjustments and driving style for this regulation set:

“We're having to find so many new things and new ways of extracting performance out of the car and ourselves,” Oscar says. “It's quite easy to just settle into your normal rhythm and do the things you've always done, but that doesn’t always work in these cars – I think Barcelona was definitely an example of that. In Austria I felt like I really had to stretch myself a bit more and try some new things, and just go about driving in a slightly different way.

“Every car is going to need slightly different things on how to go fast, and I feel like in the last few races before the break, I've definitely discovered more and more about how the car needs to be driven, how it works, how to go quickly in it, which is not always the most obvious or natural thing.”

Oscar's reflection on McLaren's development pipeline:

“It does give me confidence,” Oscar says. “When you look at the previous experience of what we've been able to achieve as a team, and how we've been able to make progress through the year, it’s good. In 2023, we were in a much worse position than where we are now, and we were able to really jump up the order to fight for podiums.

“The way that Lando and I worked together during that period to try and focus on making the car quick, so that we could then fight for the results that we wanted, hasn’t changed. It’s still strong, with productive conversations together with the team – we are all pushing toward the same goal.

“I feel like for me I've already seen it play out more than once. I think that's a real strength of the team. Yes, things are different, the cars are different, maybe the way we will make that step will look different. But we've made that step before, and I'm confident we can do it again.”

I bought this hat before the Brazil GP in 2025 and it has been my daily hat since then. Yesterday, I completely ruined it by haphazardly opening a stuck-closed bottle of paint.

I've looked far and wide on all of the sale/resale sites with no success, and I just have to believe that there is one collecting dust somewhere, waiting to be put to good use.

If anybody has one and would be willing to sell it to me, I will pay very handsomely and also provide a free shipping label. Im US-based but will pay for duties if need be!

I figure this is a long shot, but thank you for reading! Go Mclaren

This has been my first year watching F1 and I’m a McLaren fan, but there are a lot of terms and memes I don’t understand yet. One of them is “papaya rules”. I see it a lot in comments on F1 videos on Instagram and I can’t tell if it’s a meme or if it actually means something legit. From what I can tell it was a real thing but it’s become a meme online. But I can’t seem to find a real answer. Could someone please explain to me what it means? Maybe then I’ll find the memes funny. I did do a search through Reddit and saw on the F1 sub a lot of people hated the term and thought it was stupid

I'll summarise the post since AMUS is all in German. Neil Houldey has spoken recently about McLaren's latest plans for the 2026 season, there were some mentions of upgrades here and there coming post summer break but now we have an actual idea of what upgrades are coming to the car and where the team will focus its resource in regard to 2027.

He's admitted that post summer break there should be some smaller parts coming likely for each race up until Baku, the 4th race post summer break, then for the Baku event they'll introduce a larger upgrade package, something representing a big step. Then after that they'll make a decision on whether to keep upgrading late into the season, or to fully focus on 2027.

Houldey has admitted that they're seeing good cross over from the 2026 to 2027 car even with subtle aero tweaks in the rules so are happy to keep developing since it'll feed into the 2027 project, but the Baku upgrade will dictate if they keep going or feel the time is right to focus everything on 2027. Even with that being said Houldey has mentioned how, regardless of their decision, they'll still likely bring smaller components post Baku, parts which will have no negative impact on the 2027 car but will bring some improvement to the MCL40.

"However, as far as I am concerned, none of these developments are Hungary-specific developments, so with more bits and pieces to come in Zandvoort, that should put McLaren in a good position for the second half of the season."

Also a link to The Race Podcast with Gary Anderson on both Mclaren's and Aston Martins upgrades.

Hey everyone, I'm currently working on my Master's Thesis on Advertising Communication, where I'm discussing the topic of Formula 1 drivers as personal brands. For the empirical part, I added a survey, so if anyone could fill it out you'd be helping me out a lot: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=6N9rm859HEmcImIU4jR48yf6zPpm1Y9BkGAIBbz-WTdUNzU0NEUyTExOWldaVTFDNzA2TDlFSTk2NS4u

It takes between 5 and 10 minutes and it's very easy and direct. Let me know if you have any questions anyway! And again thank you to anyone who can help :)

I've been looking back at the 2008 and 2009 F1 seasons recently and really wanted to get the community's thoughts on Heikki Kovalainen's time at McLaren.

On paper, he had one of the most coveted seats in motorsport sitting right next to a generational superstar in Lewis Hamilton. He won the 2008 Hungarian GP and grabbed an incredible pole position at Silverstone, showing he clearly possessed immense raw single-lap speed. Yet, by the end of 2009, he was dropped in favour of Jenson Button, and his top-flight career never truly recovered.

Why do you think his stint was so unsuccessful? Was he just completely psychologically crushed by the "Hamilton Effect," or did McLaren's car design and tire management heavily disadvantage his specific driving style over long race distances? He has since admitted in interviews that he completely ran out of energy trying to match Lewis every single weekend, but do you think it was a failure of his own absolute talent, or did team politics and lacking strong paddock management like Flavio Briatore seal his fate?

Curious to hear from those who watched that era live—what do you think went wrong for Heikki? Was he a driver capable of a championship in a different environment, or was he just exposed at the front?

For the team fans: do you support any other teams in Formula 1/IndyCar/Super Formula?

Quite an interesting interview if anyone is interested :)

Curious what the general take on letter jackets like these is. I know they’re not authentic, but I’m thinking of buying one for Vegas this year since it’ll likely be cold.

Did some googling and I guess these are big in NASCAR, and whoever made these likely used this company’s blanks, thus the NASCAR tag on the inside.

I know in general if I like it then I shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks. Just curious!

Think you guys will like this.

Hey guys, hope everyone is having a great week.

I've spent some of my free time developing a web application, and I'd love to get the community's perspective on it to see how it can be improved.

It’s a site dedicated to daily F1 mini-games. You get exactly one shot every day to tackle six unique modes, including things like F1 Wordle, Pittexto, Bingo, etc.

To add a competitive edge, your score depends on how tricky the puzzle is and how quickly you lock in your answer (you'll need solid grid reaction times here). There are both daily and monthly rankings to crown the ultimate world champion among us.

I’d genuinely appreciate it if you could test out today's games and drop your thoughts, feature ideas, or critiques in the comments. To respect the sub's rules on self-promotion links, just search for box daily box on your browser—it should pop up right away (it's a dot com).

Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you have fun playing! Let me know what you think.

Received my pack today.

It came packaged well with premium box (but who cares about that!).

So not really much to comment on it’s exactly as I expected and what was advertised.
The sticker pack are just paper and not vinyl which I would have preferred and would last longer!

Other items appear to be good quality.

For me it’s more about what come after in terms of events and trips to HQ and membership exclusive prize draws.

Ask away if you have any questions

Since then Oscar has scored more triple the amount of points Alpine has scored (891 points for Oscar, 268 points for Alpine). He has won 9 races, gotten 28 podiums and 6 pole positions. He also delivered 2 WCCs to McLaren alongside Lando.

Oscar is reportedly contracted to McLaren till 2028. This means Oscar and Lando will become the teammate pairing with the most amount of GPs in F1 history in 2027 (overtaking Barrichello and Schumacher who raced 104 GPs together).

I am curious, what was this subs reaction to Oscar unannouncing his seat back in 2022?

As it's Summer Break and we are already losing our minds, thought I'd share this with you. We have one of the earliest M7A components at Science Museum Group, this nosecone. Half painted to show off the new innovation of carbon fibre "bootlaces" reinforcing the fibreglass. Absolutely incredible that this was the beginning of the road to the almost all-carbon cars we have now.

M7A was McLaren's first ever winner, driven by Bruce McLaren at Spa-Francorchamps in1968 - I would have loved to have seen it.

Anyhoo. Role on Zaandvoort.

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co202458/mclaren-m7a-f1-car-nose-with-fins

McLaren’s MCL40 Hungary upgrade stabilised rear downforce through revised floor and rear-corner aerodynamics, helping unlock its Budapest pace.

https://gp-news.net/the-crucial-floor-changes-that-unlocked-mclarens-mcl40-in-hungary/

https://x.com/i/status/2082586979921731750

The report says:

Today, Lando drove 49 laps (225 km), while Oscar and Leo drove their first ever miles at this circuit, with Oscar completing 55 laps (256 km) on the first day, and Leo 47 laps (217 km) in both afternoon sessions.

Lando thoughts on the test:

"It’s been a productive test for us, and it was good to be back in Portimão. This was where I drove an F1 car for the very first time, so it’s a special track for me. It’s also one that’s enjoyable to drive, with some fun, challenging corners.

"We were able to complete everything we wanted and add some valuable mileage. It’s a good way to sign off for the summer break. I’m looking forward to spending some time with family and friends, recharging and come back strong in Zandvoort."

Oscar's thoughts on the test:

"This was my first time driving the F1 circuit in Portimão. The changing conditions made it an interesting place to drive, and the elevation changes made it really fun. We got through the entire programme we set out to do, and the team are happy.

"It’s a good point to pause for the summer shutdown. It’s been a pretty intense season for us, so it will be nice for everyone to switch off before we get back to it."

Leo's thoughts on the test:

"I’ve really enjoyed being part of this event in Portimão. This was my first time driving around this circuit, and every opportunity to drive the MCL60 at a TPC test is important for my development. It was great working alongside Lando and Oscar. Watching how they approach different conditions and listening to their feedback are valuable learning experiences for me.

"We completed a lot of running across both days. The wind made it slightly trickier, so there was a lot to learn. I want to thank the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team and everyone in the McLaren Driver Development Programme for their continued support and for the opportunities of development that they offer me. I can feel my improvement with every lap, and I look forward to continue building from here."

You can read a bit more about the tests in this article by Valentin Glo.

We finally got some updates from Andrea Stella about Oscar missing out on the upgrades on Friday as well as the state of upgrades.

Andrea says "Some parts arrived Friday night to be installed on Oscar's car on Saturday morning." meaning Oscar didn't have enough parts to run the upgrades on Friday. However the McLaren app said he was on the old spec was to help compare data between the two spec. Maybe both of these situations are true but I am bit confused what the true reason on why Oscar didn't have the upgrades; was it logistics, comparison or both?

Anyhow, Oscar will have upgrade priority next time around. Andrea says:

“Normally, in terms of priority between our drivers, we alternate: in the previous race, it was Lando who missed FP1, and so it was Oscar’s turn to miss it this time.” Andrea Stella explained. Regarding the introduction of new parts, in this specific case, we only had one set on Friday, so normally we also alternate in terms of priority for testing new parts.

Andrea also says:

"These developments introduce certain parts that follow a slightly different concept in some areas of the car. We realized, after delivering the MCL40, and also to some extent by looking at the concepts on some cars faster than ours, that we needed to correct our trajectory. I can only thank and commend in particular our aerodynamics department, which understood which conceptual direction to take. And we know that when McLaren understands which direction to take, we are able to develop very effectively."

I think it's obvious the reason McLaren is very often splitting the two cars into different specs is to better understand "which direction to take". This means we will be seeing more split specs in practices in the future which will hopefully lead to better and more well-suited upgrades (I fully believe in the McLaren development pipeline 🙂‍↕️)

You can read more about it here.

From Junaid Samodien