P1 with Matt and Tommy - Our reaction to the McLaren F1 car launch

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

The Papaya Posse have unveiled their new car from a launch in Bahrain - featuring some slightly awkward reminiscing about last season and one of the smallest title sponsor logos we’ve ever seen…Sign up to our Patreon! You'll get access to every P1 episode ad-free, extended versions of every 2026 race review, early access to tickets & merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now: http://patreon.com/mattp1tommyFollow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 you on YouTube. Because we got car launches McGee. We 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, it's Aston Martin next, and we had an equally long McLaren car launch, didn't we? We were talking about, I think you kind of maybe regretted saying McLaren always cooked with their car launch,

and then when they announced 40 minutes. I'm sorry. Was it long, or was it... It wasn't the worst. It wasn't the worst. I don't think, I think it just felt long, because McLaren usually, you know, 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. I think what they did get right, you know, if you compare it to something like Alpine, where we're talking about how like 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 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 the CEO of MasterCard talking for like 40 minutes instead we turned off they may well still be going with yeah true but look it was it was an interesting one right they 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. Oh, with the silence was so loud. There's no audience. Why are we having walkouts, guys? They could just come to the Zofa. 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 on to a bit more of that because there's plenty of things to 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'm 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 airbox compared to it being black from last year is a nice addition. I don't mind the stripe. It's 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, Tommy, you can't really complain when you've been celebrating Red Bulls 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 hesitate her and say, I don't like it, particularly. after 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 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. Clever.

That wasn't even deliver a check. I wish it was. what I would say is maybe it would have been quite cool to maybe mix the pattern up between the black and orange a little bit just after like there's something about like 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 the kind of livery from last year will always be kind of you know like iconic to like Landau's championship and McLaren winning that winning that championship and their first driver's championship in a long time and then you refresh it and go again would have been nice but. It's still a really nice livery and I maybe like it a little less 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 a nice element to the car. Yeah, yeah. Let's get to a question for B1 Patreon 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 don't even have the side pod to themselves. They're sharing it with three other sponsors, with two other sponsors, sorry, MasterCard. It is wild. Obviously, they're thinking behind it is they don't need to have the logo that they're maybe 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 they were kind of promoting that, you know, it's the new team name, and they were kind of teased, the teasing images looked like a kind of fade between the red and the orange of MasterCard. And it was like, okay, this,

maybe they're going to do something with that new title sponsorship. And actually, yeah, like, 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 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 the last kind of probably, yeah, spent to have to have. have the space there. But, you know, HP, I just sat there like, come on, guys. What are you doing? Just put it on no matter what, whatever size you want. Put it on the flipping outfits.

Put it on the side of the car, the front of the car. Yeah, Mastercard have gone for minimal. A little impact. But, yeah, perhaps they will be getting more prominence elsewhere. Because, yeah, I mean, it is small. Don't get me wrong. One thing they did tease actually when they were talking about it, because we know now as well, like, and I think McClara and I particularly into this kind of thing, doing special liver livery throughout the season. And they teased that, I think it was Miami, if I remember correctly, was there one thousandth.

I can never say that word, Grand Prix. What? What just happened? What just happened? One thousandth Grand Prix. What? One thousandth. One thousandth Grand Prix.

I can't say it. That's a one thousandth. absolutely amazing. Keep saying it. I can't say it. This is amazing. What's a number after 99? Award winning podcast. And yeah, it's, so it's their special anniversary and they're obviously going to go maybe big with something different. So what was the anniversary?

The 1,000th delivery. Wow. Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing if they do something pretty crazy 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 talk about?

On a scale of one to Bahrain. From the scale of one to Bahrain, I did, look, I quite enjoyed, you know, them showing that Bahrain had just basically become papaya. Like, they'd turned the whole city into papaya. The streetlights 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. was a lot more flat compared to when they have it at the technology center like you say and

they got the fans there and it's a more upbeat atmosphere um there's something weird about yeah like the walk-ons and a sit-down talk to nobody um it almost makes it feel more stale um and like less kind of atmospheric i guess and exciting um but yeah they they obviously went absolutely ham with all the papaya painting the town uh and you know showing shots of bar rain completely covered in papaya. You know, imagine if you're a Max Ostappan fan driving to work and you're like, I'm finally over at 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. Apparently Bahrain, you know, 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,

bit shoddy. 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.

We were just sat there talking about what our favourite Pokemon were and Yeah, because we didn't reflect on that on the Cadillac launch that your boy, Charlotte Clare's, it 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 also, you know, 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 or twice.

So let's get into what we expect from McLaren this season, Tommy. Where do you sit? I sit. Not really spoken about this, but 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 um testing real testing real testing that's definitely representative we'll find out and but look i think McLaren are kind of being slept on a little bit um particularly Lando Norris um of course you know both drivers and McLaren in general not being spoken about, but they won the championship last year with a 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've got the fan votes and people were like, our biggest flop's going to be Lando as well. We saw, kind of like, when we did our preseason predictions, and we've got the fan votes. And people were like, our our biggest flop's going to be Lando, 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 works like. 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 for McLaren are that they have to be strong. Like, 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. If it's banned. And what is the latest that we've seen? The latest I saw is that the FAA have acknowledged. it and they because there's been a lot of rumors.

There's been the whole Red Bull deciding voting. Yeah, this is this right. I think everyone needs to be a little bit careful about, um, 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. Um, but yeah, from reliable sources, the FAA now have basically said,

we are aware of this situation and we do want to try and basically, like get it sorted before the first race because they know it's going to if they don't get it sort it 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 uh and you know 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 cheek with this one in 18 compression ratio. I think they should be reduced to one 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... 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 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 rumours, 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 dobed, doved Mercedes in. Yeah, that's what I've heard again, is that Red Bull tried to replicate it, couldn't, then went, excuse me, FIA.

Yeah, have you seen this? I did worry, like 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 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. Louis 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 rebel 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 Landau'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 Zandvort, 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 Landau's number and then it all it was that run of races wasn't it where in the kind of Azerbaijan to Vegas really I know I know he got to qualified in the end but where he just didn't seem to have any pace and but at the end of the day like 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's championship if you put those five races at the start of the year,

we'd be talking about Oscar Piastria's like, oh my God, what a driver, he's going to be unbelievable instead of like, oh, what, he's completely, you know, bottled this season and, oh, he's rubbish, because you've seen so many, like, edits and things like that saying he's had a bad season, he just definitely didn't. It was a great season from him in his third year in Formula One, and him, you know, switching with Lando

at 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. Silverstone. Yeah, exactly. So he was so close to winning the World Championship in his third year against, you know,

a teammate with a lot more experience. And yeah, I think he's going to, I think he's going to continue that form. And we've said this so many times with Oscar Piazori. We said it in 2024. Like, if he's this good now, how good is it going to be? You know, 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 where it looks like Anakin Skywalker and say it's not, it's not out for vengeance. Yeah, and I also love just in the car launch, just, just didn't look like he didn't want to be there. He was in shorts. T-shirts and shorts. All right, cool.

Let's get this over and done with and I'll see you in Australia. I did love the questions of Lando. How does it feel to be a world champion? Oscar, uh, how was your holiday? Yeah, cool. Great thanks. Yeah. I mean, talk about anything other than probably last year for the last good 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, aeropaint. 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%. They'll find some carbon paint or something, something that makes it even 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. Love to that. Bye. Goodbye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the Acast Creator Network.