Circuit de Monaco, Friday, 5 June
Celebrations for McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team’s 1000th Grand Prix began on Thursday at the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix with a special exhibition run at the Circuit de Monaco. The M2B, the team’s first-ever F1 car, now owned by Richard Mille, was driven by two-time Formula 1 World Champion Mika Häkkinen, before lining up on the grid alongside the team’s 1000th GP challenger, the MCL40, for a commemorative moment.
CEO Zak Brown, Team Principal Andrea Stella, and drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, were joined by multiple McLaren F1 Grand Prix winners from throughout our history for this special celebration, as well as F1 President & CEO Stefano Domenicali, who was also in attendance.
Today’s track action saw the special 1000th Grand Prix livery come to life as the MCL40 carried it for laps in the Principality for the first time during Free Practice 1. Despite a stop-start opening session with two Red Flags interrupting proceedings, Lando and Oscar were able to collect valuable data while working through a combined 56 completed laps.
Free Practice 2 saw frustration, with the Number 1 car stopping on track after eight laps due to a suspected electrical fault, which will be further investigated overnight. Oscar, driving the Number 81 car, went on to complete 27 laps in Friday’s final session, finishing FP2 in P7 behind Monte Carlo’s expected frontrunners.
It is therefore clear that despite positive steps forward and improvements to the MCL40’s setup in the afternoon session, the car is currently not in a position to compete with the top three teams this weekend, which would not have been too much of a surprise coming into the weekend. However, the team will work extremely hard overnight and into Saturday’s practice session to extract further performance from the car, to put both drivers in a stronger competitive position ahead of Qualifying, which will play a crucial role in Sunday’s Grand Prix.