The McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team head to Baku for Round 15 of the 2026 season, ready to take on one of the calendar's most distinctive street circuits.
The 6.003 km Baku City Circuit combines tight, barrier-lined corners through the Old City with heavy braking zones and an extended flat-out run, placing a premium on precision, confidence and straight-line efficiency.
The team arrives in Azerbaijan understanding the competitive challenge ahead of them but will continue to look at carrying momentum forward generated by the MCL40's performance across recent races in the second half of the season such as Zandvoort and Madrid. With the car demonstrating encouraging pace at the last event and an increasingly competitive operating window, the focus is on maximising each session and converting that progress into strong results as the Championship moves into the upcoming triple header across September and October.
As part of the team's continued journey throughout the 2026 season, the team will bring to Baku a set of upgrades aimed to improve the aerodynamic performance of the MCL40. Additionally the H-Wing, that debuted in Monza, will be back in action on a track where the drag reduction can be a factor.
As has been the approach in previous races this season, all new parts will be evaluated throughout practice before the team makes final decisions regarding the MCL40's Qualifying and Grand Prix setup for the weekend.
The 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix will also provide another valuable opportunity to assess all developments across a circuit with a particularly broad range of demands including the tight, low-speed sections through the Old City to the extended flat-out run along the main straight. On top of this, energy management and deployment will be particularly important in maximising performance across the lap, while the length of the straight creates an additional challenge into Turn 1, where the brakes and tyres can be relatively cold after the prolonged period at full throttle.
While all teams will face these challenges throughout each session, the leading four teams are all expected to be capable of victory with the chasing pack also continuing to close in. Therefore, McLaren Mastercard will be aiming to execute a clean weekend and establish itself firmly in the fight at the front.
This year, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix will be held on Saturday to avoid falling on the same day as the country's national Remembrance Day held on Sunday 27 September.
Rob Marshall - Chief Technical Officer & Chief Designer: "Baku is a circuit of extremes, combining the longest straight in Formula 1 with some of the slowest corners, so there are significant compromises to manage. Straight Mode gives every team greater scope to run a low-drag car on the straights while retaining downforce through the corners, but the challenge remains the same: bring the best design and set-up choices, then execute them cleanly on track.
"We are still learning about these cars at every event, and we have both overperformed and underperformed against our expectations at different races this season. Baku will provide another valuable test of the MCL40 across a very different range of characteristics. Energy management and deployment will be particularly important, as will tyre and brake management with the cars arriving at Turn 1 after the long straight with these areas relatively cold.
"Operationally, there is very little margin for error on a tight street circuit. A small mistake can lead to significant repairs, lost track time and resources being diverted away from performance, so confidence, precision and disciplined execution will be essential throughout the weekend.
"With regulatory continuity into next season and the competition at the front so close, our motivation to keep developing the car remains high. We must balance that with work on next year's car, but our immediate focus is on delivering more performance and fighting for more victories in 2026, while carrying forward everything we learn. We expect any of the top four teams to be capable of winning in Baku, with the chasing pack also getting closer, and we hope to be firmly in the fight at the front."
McLaren Racing Heritage - Azerbaijan Grand Prix
1 win, 1 podium, 1 Fastest Lap
Special race: 2019, Lando Norris' rookie season in the MCL34
Most recent win & standout race: 2024, Oscar Piastri in the MCL38
The 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix saw Oscar Piastri take victory from second on the grid with a great overtaking move; Lando made a great recovery drive from 15th to finish fourth. It was a day where the strategy worked perfectly, excellent teamwork delivered the result and, perhaps most importantly, McLaren went to the top of the Constructors' Championship for the first time in a decade.
The weekend didn't start off to a great start. The race was a presumptive one-stop, and overtaking was expected to be difficult. The team therefore split the strategies, with Oscar starting on the Medium tyre and Lando pursuing the alternative route with a Hard tyre fitted, planning to go long and use the pace in the MCL38 to gain ground in the middle of the race.
Lando made a good getaway and passed his way up to P11 across the first few laps. He then made more significant gains when the Medium starters had their stops between Laps 10-17. He went very deep into the race before his pit stop. Extending his race gave him an opportunity to exploit a Safety Car for a cheap stop, should one appear but even without that he was still lapping faster than the midfield and steadily ejecting cars from his pit window. He eventually pitted on Lap 37 of the 51, dropping only from P6 to P7. He emerged from the pits 15 seconds behind Max Verstappen, and then used a substantial tyre delta to catch and pass the Red Bull driver with two laps remaining. He finished P4 after Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez collided in the final stages.
Oscar had taken his first F1 victory a few weeks earlier, in Hungary, and was keen to double down. Starting P2, Oscar followed race leader Charles Leclerc through the first stint, without an obvious way through appearing. Of the leading group, Perez was the first to pit on Lap 11, and Oscar was at risk of the undercut, but Perez's stop put him out behind Lando, who was able to cool his own pace through the tight middle sector by just enough to ensure Oscar retained track position after his own stop on Lap 15. Leclerc and Sainz pitted on laps 16 and 17, and the picture at the front remained unchanged.
That's when Oscar made the race-defining move. At the end of Lap 19, he got a superb exit from the last corner, hooked up the slipstream, opened the DRS and committed up the inside into Turn One. It was an all-or-nothing pass: he sailed past Leclerc's Ferrari and just managed to make the corner, with millimetres to spare from the barriers.
Oscar's Race Engineer, Tom Stallard, recalls how after the race, the team's Head of Track Aero Performance, Luigi de Martino Norante likened Oscar to a bumblebee. "Physics says the bumblebee cannot fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know it, and flies anyway. Our overtaking model said Oscar count not overtake Leclerc from that distance behind, but Oscar hadn't seen the overtaking model, so he did it anyway."
Leclerc fought back in the following laps, but Oscar judged his defensive line perfectly, held-off the charge, and was eventually able to pull out from DRS range, eventually coming home 10 seconds clear. "Oscar was caught by a gust of wind in the final corner. The car skateboarded on the plank, unloading the wheels and cost a lot of time. But Leclerc caught the same gust, with the same outcome and lost the same amount of time, so Oscar was able to stay ahead."
"I was able to stand on the podium and represent this fantastic team," says Tom. "I had an incredible sense of the band of people who created this result, and it was such a proud moment for me."
The result was a milestone for McLaren. The fourth victory of the season, a 13th consecutive race on the podium but, most crucially, the first time the team had led the Constructors' Championship since the Australian Grand Prix of 2014. It was a position never relinquished, with the team going on to take its first Constructors' Championship since 1998.
Baku City Circuit
Race laps: 51
Circuit length: 6.003 km/3.730 miles
Total race distance: 306.049 km/190.176 miles
Number of corners: 20 (8 right, 12 left)
Pit loss: +20s
Safety Car L1 pit loss: +9s
Energy management required: Medium
Allocated tyre compounds: Hard: C3, Medium: C4 & Soft: C5
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