P1 with Matt and Tommy Feb 9, 2026

Our reaction to the McLaren F1 car launch

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22:24

Brand

Cadillac

Cadillac is a brand that makes luxury cars in the United States. They are known for their stylish designs and high-quality features.

Brand

McLaren

McLaren is a company that makes very fast and expensive sports cars. They are also known for their racing cars in Formula 1.

Brand

Aston Martin

Aston Martin is a luxury car brand from the UK, famous for making stylish and fast cars. They are often seen in movies, especially James Bond films.

Term

Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen is a famous race car driver in Formula 1, known for being very skilled and winning many races.

Brand

Mercedes

Mercedes is a famous car brand that makes luxury cars and also competes in racing, especially in Formula 1. They are known for their high-quality vehicles.

Brand

Ferrari

Ferrari is a well-known car brand from Italy that makes very fast and expensive sports cars. They also have a successful racing team in Formula 1.

Term

compression ratio

Compression ratio tells you how much the engine squeezes the fuel and air before it burns. A higher number means more power, but it also needs special fuel to work well.

Company

Adrian Newey

Adrian Newey is a famous car designer who works in Formula 1. He is known for creating very fast racing cars that win a lot of races.

Term

aero paint

Aero paint is a special type of paint used on racing cars to help them go faster by making them more aerodynamic. It helps reduce air resistance.

LIVE

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the P1 Podcast with Matt and Tommy.

Thick and fast is what the podcasts are into your ears and eyes, if you watch it on YouTube,

because we've got car launches, McGee.

We've got three, technically, in the UK time zone.

We, of course, had Cadillac.

We're now talking about McLaren, and we're going to have Aston Martin or the Lawrence

stroll launch later, which I'm thoroughly looking forward to.

I've got my popcorn.

Might even have to have my three-course dinner to get through Lawrence stroll,

talking about himself and Aston Martin.

Yeah, well, it's Aston Martin next, and we had a equally long McLaren car launch,

didn't we?

We were talking about that you kind of maybe regretted saying McLaren always cook

with their car launch and then when they announced 40 minutes.

I'm sorry.

Well, was it was it long or was it they didn't?

It wasn't the worst.

I think it just felt long because McLaren, usually, they do it in their amazing

technology centre, they have fans involved, they're quite fun with it, right?

And this one felt like a paid partnership by the Bahrain Tourism Committee.

Yeah, very much so.

It didn't.

I think what they did get right, if you compare it to something like Alpine,

where we're talking about how they find that right balance, don't they,

of trying to do like a longer event versus a one minute video.

And equally, they know that if they do a video launch or whatever,

during the thing, they can't do it at the start because everyone will like

turn off basically as soon as the car is revealed.

So they did the right thing in getting like the drivers on and like

reflecting on the season rather than, you know, having the CEO of MasterCard

talking for like 40 minutes instead.

Well, we turned off.

They may well still be going with the MasterCard.

CEO.

But look, it was it was an interesting one, right?

They held it in the garage, which is, I guess, a coolish backdrop.

But there was no one there.

And they had these walkouts, which felt, you know, that is your actual

worst nightmare, isn't it, of having a walkout?

The silence was so loud.

There's no audience.

Why are we having walkouts, guys?

Like, they could just come to the sofa.

It's no problem.

But yeah, I don't think it was that long.

I think it was more the fact that it just felt a little bit stale in

comparison to maybe some McLaren car launches in the past.

We'll get onto a bit more of that because there's there's plenty of things

to touch upon with the McLaren team launch, not car launch.

But let's talk about the livery, shall we?

The livery from last year that slightly tweaked, but not by much, even less

so than what I initially thought when I first saw it released today.

I am a fan of the McLaren livery in general.

I think maybe last year I felt like there was a little bit too much black.

There's a little bit more papaya this year in comparison.

And I think I prefer it to last year.

I do.

I think that having that extra papaya element around the air box

compared to it being black from last year is a nice addition.

I don't mind the stripe, which is kind of now a proper black stripe

down the side of the car now, which, yeah.

I'm not at all sort of angry about this.

It obviously would have been quite exciting for them to have celebrated

their Mastercard appearance within the team with something

a touch more exciting.

But then again, you know, Tommy, you can't really complain

when you've been celebrating Red Bull's livery for the last 15 years.

And I will say, I think McLaren, particularly, you know, last year,

the year before, I've been saying that it's one of the best liveries on the grid,

if not one of my favourites, I think it was really well executed.

They've got a strong branding colour with their papaya,

which obviously they go absolutely crazy with.

You know, I can't can't consider and say I don't like it,

particularly after the my thoughts on the Cadillac, of course.

And McLaren are quite the opposite, where they are like papaya, papaya.

Look, we've painted Bahrain papaya. Oh, my God, look, there's papaya.

Here's his papaya.

So I respect it because they've got a very strong

brand colour that you just think of McLaren straight away as soon as you see it.

And the livery, yes, it is almost a carbon copy.

I think if I'm being good one, way clever.

That wasn't even that was a deliberate check, I wish it was.

What I would say is maybe it would have been quite cool

to to maybe mix the the pattern up between the black and orange a little bit,

just after like there's something about like that now they've won the championship

and you're going into a new era, maybe it's time to like refresh it a little bit

and then and and the kind of livery from last year will always be kind of,

you know, like iconic to like Lando's championship

and McLaren winning that winning that championship

and their first drivers championship in a long time.

And then you refresh it and go again would have been nice.

But it's still a really, really nice livery.

And I maybe like it a little less than than last year.

I don't think it fits the car as well, personally.

Wow, I feel like we've disagreed on almost every single car launch,

which I absolutely love it and I want more of it, please.

They've, of course, replaced the Chrome sponsorship with Gemini now,

but they've kept the wheel covers with the glorious Rainbow,

which I think is is a nice element to the car.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's get to a question.

Be one patriot member, TVR driver role.

Are you surprised that the Mastercard branding is not more prominent on the car?

I have never seen a title sponsor so small on a race car.

It is actually insane.

They're not they don't even have the side pod to themselves.

They're sharing it with three other spots, like with two of the sponsors.

Sorry, Mastercard, it is wild.

Obviously, their thinking behind it is they don't need to have the logo

that there may be more prominent in the team name.

Of course, now being called McLaren Mastercard

and the fact that they are, you know, they've got the team title,

maybe means they don't need to go so heavy on the branding on the car.

But I did think that when when they were kind of promoting that,

you know, it's the new team name and they were kind of the teasing images

look like a kind of fade between the red and the orange of Mastercard.

And it was like, OK, this maybe they're going to do something

with that new title sponsorship.

And actually, yeah, I genuinely cannot think of a smaller title sponsor

on a race car I have ever seen.

It's got to be it's got to be surely it's tiny.

Like it's barely visible.

Yeah, when you look at it, it genuinely is the size of the the OKX

that's next to it.

And there is just a massive sort of black area between Gemini

and the three sponsors where you would be forgiven for the amount

of money they're going to spend to have the space there.

But HP, I just sat there like, come on, guys, what are you doing?

Just just put it on no matter what, whatever size you want.

Put it on the flipping outfits, but on the side of the car, the front of the car.

Yeah, Mastercard have gone for minimal is a little impact.

But yeah, perhaps they will be getting more prominence elsewhere

because, yeah, I mean, it's it is small.

Yeah, one thing one thing they did tease, actually,

when they were talking about it, because we know now as well, like,

and I think McLaren are particularly into this kind of thing,

doing special liveries throughout the season.

And they teased that I think it was Miami, if I remember correctly,

was their one thousandth, I can never say that word, Grand Prix.

One thousandth Grand Prix.

What just happened? One thousandth Grand Prix.

One thousandth.

One thousandth Grand Prix.

I can't say it. I can't say that word.

Absolutely.

You know what I'm like with numbers?

Keep saying it.

I can't say it.

This is amazing.

What's the number after 999?

Award winning podcast.

And yeah, it's so that it's their special anniversary

and they're obviously going to go maybe big with something different.

Maybe they'll combine the thousandth delivery.

Wow. Yeah.

I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing if they do something pretty crazy for that

for that race.

Teams like to do stuff in Miami anyway, don't they?

Yeah, they always do.

To go big.

So let's see on that one.

What did we think of the Bahrain car launch from Bahrain overall?

How would we?

How would we scale up one to Bahrain?

From the scale of one to Bahrain, I did I quite enjoyed them showing

that Bahrain had just basically become papaya.

Like they turned the whole city into into papaya.

The street lights looked papaya and crazy.

So those kind of touches, absolutely, I'm all here for.

But it did feel very.

Yeah, it felt quite uptight for a McLaren car launch.

I'll be real because, of course, they usually have media.

They usually have applause and things like that.

And it did feel a little bit flat because of the fact they were in a garage.

So clearly they were ticking off some responsibilities that they have with Bahrain.

And I think that the car launch suffered slightly because of it.

Yeah, definitely.

It was a lot more flat compared to when they have it at the technology centre,

like you say, and they got the fans there and some more upbeat atmosphere.

There's something weird about the walk-ons and a sit-down talk to nobody.

It almost makes it feel more stale and like less kind of atmospheric, I guess, and exciting.

But, yeah, they obviously went absolutely ham with all the papaya painting the town

and showing shots of Bahrain completely covered in papaya.

Imagine if you're a Max Verstappen fan driving to work and you're like,

I'm finally over it, the two points of the championship, and then you're driving to work.

And it's like, oh, we've got to look at McLaren now.

Jesus, yeah.

Yes, that in itself was unique.

As Bran said, apparently Bahrain, they're all McLaren through and through.

McLaren, you know.

Yeah, somehow the papaya lights reminded us of the McLaren heritage.

It was a big old leap into the unknown with that wasn't it?

Because I'm not sure it was quite linked.

But either or, that was the car launch.

Also as well, a bit shoddy that the actual production of it was like,

we literally had a cameraman walk in front of the camera at one point with his massive camera.

It was, I don't think, fully live either.

So there were elements of it.

I was like, guys, what are we doing here?

Yeah, like a pre-record, but then still the odd kind of rough around the edges.

I don't know whether they're kind of keeping it to make it kind of look live,

but it's a very weird choice.

But we were just sat there talking about what our favourite Pokémon were and where there's a background.

Because we didn't reflect on that on the Cadillac launch that your boy,

Charlotte Clairs, was in a Super Bowl ad, which is exciting.

He was, which is probably the most exciting thing of today, to be honest with you.

But we all say, you know, it's sort of explored whether Zach Brown has laid in bed

since the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, questioning whether he should have said,

is this the world champion hotline?

I think even Zach might have questioned it once.

Maybe.

So let's get into what we expect from McLaren this season, Tommy.

Where do you sit?

I sit, I'm not really spoken about this, but like part of my, you know,

very controversial prediction, obviously, about saying that I didn't think Max would win a race

was mainly because I thought Mercedes would dominate and also McLaren would be very, very strong as well.

And I could see kind of those two taking up all the race wins,

whether that's Ferrari now involved after testing.

Sorry, shake down, we'll find out.

Testing, real testing.

Real testing that's definitely representative, we'll find out.

But look, I think McLaren are being slept on a little bit, particularly Lando Norris.

Of course, you know, both drivers and McLaren in general not being spoken about, but

they won the championship last year with the Mercedes engine.

They've had time to work on their car because they were so clear.

They won the championship last year.

They're going to have a huge kind of, you know, high about that.

And yeah, I think they're going to, I think they're going to be very, very strong and competing

right at the sharp end.

And we saw kind of like when we did our preseason predictions and we got the fan votes

and people were like, our biggest flop is going to be Lando as well, people saying.

I think it's incredibly silly to write him off as going for the championship again personally.

I think he's going to be up there.

I do think Oscar's going to step up his game even more.

But they've got two incredibly strong drivers and a strong team.

I think they're going to do really, really well.

Yeah, but Tommy, you're also forgetting that our wonderful listeners,

they know what a loophole of the big flop looks like.

The Matt Gallagher role, yeah.

And if Lando doesn't win the world championship, then that's a flop.

They know, I see exactly what they're up to.

And look, they're here for a cheap point and fair enough, well played.

My expectations from McLaren are that they have to be strong.

Everything on paper suggests that they should have a very strong package.

You can't fall so far from grace despite having quite a bit of time last year,

despite challenging for the championship, quite a bit of time because of how far ahead they were

to work on this new regulation set.

They've got Rob Marshall.

And overall, I would say that with that Mercedes engine as well,

you'd be silly to say that they're going to be fifth or sixth in the constructors.

I just can't see it.

So yeah, I think they will challenge for wins.

Where we sit currently on the rumors of where this compression ratio is going,

I don't know because right now it seems like Ferrari might clean sweep the whole season.

If it's banned.

And what is the latest that we've seen?

What I saw is that the FAA have acknowledged it because there's been a lot of rumors.

There's been a whole Red Bull deciding.

Right, I think everyone needs to be a little bit careful about

just because a Twitter page uses the red alarm emojis doesn't mean they're a reliable source.

Does that not mean it has to be?

I know, crazy.

But yeah, from reliable sources, the FAA now have basically said we are aware of the situation

and we do want to try and basically like get it sorted before the first race because they know

if they don't get it sorted before that first race, it's going to rumble on,

it's going to be controversy, it could go on and on and they want to try and sort it.

Now, yeah, it depends how they go with it.

Do they think of the competition?

And I'm sure Matt, think of the competition.

Think Ferrari, let's win it all.

Come on.

I think they have the...

Because of this, because of Mercedes being quite cheeky with this 1 in 18 compression ratio,

I think they should be reduced to 1 in 12.

Because they've tried to exceed the limits, they now get a punishment.

Ferrari are the only ones that can run it 1 to 16.

What do you think?

Well, I don't think obviously that's true.

I was actually trying to find something.

We still wouldn't win.

I'm trying to find something because I saw that someone actually shared the wording of the

technical regulations and obviously there was, and this is always how it's done, isn't it?

Where they basically, they found this loophole and the loophole, of course,

is the fact that they can do that when it's hot and it expands.

And the idea was that it's only at resting temperature.

But there's a bit in the technical regulations that say no cylinder of the engine may have

a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.

So that doesn't say about hot or cold or anything like that.

So you could argue that that is kind of a fact that that's got to be the case.

So if you take that one, it's kind of illegal, right, you'd think.

But there we go.

Yeah, we've probably misunderstood that entirely and there are people out there going,

what are you talking about guys?

It obviously is this, that and the other.

But that's fine.

We will leave that for other experts to sort out and then we will obviously judge the result.

I do enjoy the rumors and it seems reliable that Red Bull knew that this could be done,

but didn't know how to replicate it and went and then basically dobbled Mercedes in.

That's what I've heard again is that Red Bull tried to replicate it, couldn't,

then went, excuse me, FIA, have you seen this?

I did worry that my team was being far too likable last year.

I need the villains back, please.

Thank you very much.

Oh, and they are there.

They are there in full force.

Okay, yeah.

So I think we both reckon that McLaren should in theory be very strong and be challenging

for victories and perhaps even the championship.

Question from Camden C. Wilson, does Oscar have a redemption year?

I think, you know, this might be a little bit controversial.

I don't think he needs to redeem himself when you consider the trajectory of his career so far.

Year three was unexpected, I think, for almost every single person watching

at Oscar's performance.

Yes, he led the majority of the championship.

Yes, he probably should have won the world championship.

He came very close.

I don't think he needs to redeem himself.

I think he can be very proud of what he's achieved so far.

I fully expect him to improve once again, but this is going to be a different test for Oscar.

This isn't just a case of improving as a driver.

It's the adaptability side of things that some drivers have struggled in the past.

Some have been amazing.

Lewis Hamilton, for example, is one of them who's been able to adapt to different regulation sets

and still win and be incredibly competitive.

That's something we'll now see potentially from Oscar this year.

Him being a younger driver, less muscle memory, usually it can work in their favour.

That's why we spoke about Isaac Hajar, for example, and why he's probably in a good

stead of being able to do better than the Red Bull drivers we've had recently.

So, no, I don't think Oscar needs to redeem himself,

but I do believe he will step up once again and be a pain in Lando's side.

Yeah, definitely. I am of the same opinion, really, that I think it's maybe overplayed,

and maybe it's the nature of how it panned out, because I think Oscar, after

Zandvoort, people were saying, like, the championship's done.

He's got it won. He was on this amazing form.

He was just finishing first or second for fun.

He looked like he had Lando's number, and then it all...

It was that run of races, wasn't it, in the kind of Azerbaijan to Vegas, really.

I know you got disqualified in the end, but where he just didn't seem to have any pace.

But at the end of the day, he had a strong end to the season.

He was second in Abu Dhabi.

He was going to win Qatar and dominate the whole weekend easily before McLaren's blunder.

And I would argue that, as a world championship, if you put those five races at the start of the

year, we'd be talking about Oscar Piestrius, like, oh my God, what a driver.

He's going to be unbelievable, instead of like, oh, what he's completely bottled this season

and always rubbish, because you've seen so many edits and things like that saying he's had a bad

season. He just definitely didn't. It was a great season for him.

In his third year in Formula One, and him switching with Lando, a second and first place,

which so easily could have happened, you look back to things like Hungary or whatever,

he would have won the world championship.

Silver State, yeah, exactly. So he was so close to winning the world championship

in his third year against a teammate with a lot more experience.

And yeah, I think he's going to continue that form.

We've said this so many times, Oscar Piestri. We said it in 2024, like, if he's this good now,

how good is he going to be? I think that is exactly, you can continue that idea,

because I think he's going to be really strong again. And particularly that, I mean,

I dare anyone to look at that picture, it looks like Anakin Skywalker and say it's not out for

vengeance. Yeah, and I also love just in the car launch, just look like they want to be there.

He was in shorts. T-shirts and shorts.

All right, cool. Let's get this over and done with. I'll see you in Australia.

I did love the questions of Lando. How does it feel to be world champion?

Oscar, how was your holiday? Yeah, cool. Great. Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, talk about anything other than probably last year for Oscar's sake.

Okay, that is it. We have wrapped up the McLaren car launch. Let us know your thoughts, of course,

in the comments of how you're liking the very, very small change of the McLaren car. Tommy,

what are your final thoughts? Final thoughts are bring on Aston Martin and see if Adrian Newey has

created some weird, like, aero paint. I'm very curious to see how an Adrian Newey Aston Martin is

and whether they kind of change their livery, because that's something that they kind of

have always mentioned with Adrian Newey that he'd have the car completely carbon if he could,

but he can't because it's got to be 55% so how? They'll find some carbon paint or something,

something that makes it way less. But yeah, looking forward to that. We'll be back later

for that podcast. So more waffle for your ears. And that is it. See you soon. Bye. Goodbye.

0:00

22:24

Our reaction to the McLaren F1 car launch

Cadillac

McLaren

Aston Martin

Max Verstappen

Mercedes

Ferrari

compression ratio

Adrian Newey

aero paint

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