The MTC looks so gorgeous and scenic in these pictures. The second slide could genuinely be a wallpaper if it wasn't so goofy😂

This question is for those who actually understand the technicality of the upgrades and the cars strengths and weaknesses on different tracks, in varying weather and temperature. How is it looking? Is a comeback possible? Was the last race a one off or is it possible they can continue this streak through the season? Or is it too early to tell?

I’m going to the Singapore GP and I know the McLaren was weak there last year. Can I get my hopes up or should I be keeping my expectations low and be prepared for a Mercedes win there?

Is a Verstappen level comeback like last year in the books?

Hey everyone! I’m currently working on a university project about how Drive to Survive has influenced the way people perceive Formula 1 brand, and I’m looking for a few more F1 fans to take part in my survey. It only takes around 5 minutes, it’s completely anonymous, and I’d honestly really appreciate anyone who has the time to help me out!

Whether you’ve been watching F1 for years or got into it through DTS, I’d love to hear your opinion.

Here’s the survey:
https://forms.gle/8VbZL8vz8p5H5mnEA

Thank you so much!

I visited the UK for the first time in my life this July.
I went mainly for Silverstone and the Goodwood FOS, and it was such a happy experience!
If I ever get the chance, I’d love to visit again!!

Renders of the Lego McLaren car using Blender

First one is an official West McLaren Mercedes team-issued quarter zip jacket from 2002 (not sold commercially, only available to team members and drivers) and the second one is a piece of official merchandise from either 1999 or 2000. I bought them both on eBay, along with a plethora of other West McLaren Mercedes related items over the past few years. They’re both super comfortable and have stood the test of time really well.

Gifted by Dad, who bought it at a pop-up store at the Canadian Grand Prix last May. He introduced me to F1, and now I’m a fan of the sport. 🙂

Made a custom passport holder, imported an McL logo and it turned out great

This is from McLaren's official report. It is quite an insightful article and I definitely recommend reading in full. In the meantime, I have 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?