McLaren unleashing 'most powerful tool' in new 'cat and mouse' F1 game

McLaren has described how its "most powerful tool" is being unleashed to aid its learning in a "cat and mouse" game with F1 rivals.

For F1's new era in 2026, McLaren is continuing with a customer supply of Mercedes High Performance Powertrains (HPP) engines, with all teams trying to grasp how best to deploy the higher battery power across the season.

In 2025, the batteries produced 120kw of power, but for 2026, this has been nearly trebled to 350kw, with the batteries also now producing an equal 50-50 split in power output with the internal combustion engine. 

There were fears last season that the 50-50 split could leave a driver running out of electrical energy mid-straight and reverting to ICE power only if the supply was mismanaged, as McLaren's performance technical director Mark Temple detailed how the team is working to understand how best to deploy the reserves, and what this means for rivals.

"As soon as the driver is involved, our most powerful tool is the simulator," Temple, who previously served as race engineer to Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, told select media, including RacingNews365. 

"Because there's an amount that we can do to brief the drivers, to help them understand the principles around which the 2026 rules create around the need to use your energy, if you like, more intelligently and more strategically around the lap, and the need to harvest energy more consciously.

"A lot of the management is done through the power unit control, but there are also some elements within the drivers' control which they need to understand and use optimally, and the simulator is by far and away the best tool for that.

"We've been working with HPP and been able to recreate some of those behaviours with the test, and then race drivers to do simulations of Australia, Bahrain, etc., to understand the different challenges for a qualifying and race lap, or even different race situations.

"The most interesting aspect and the thing which is hardest to simulate is the overtaking and attacking and defending scenarios, where previously you had DRS, and there wasn't too much of a tactical element to how you used the driver controls.

"Whereas, in 2026, the amount of energy you have will be much more of a factor in strategy, so if you think of Bahrain, where you've got three long straights one after the other from Turn 13 to Turn 4, the amount of energy you use on each of those straights will be a really interesting challenge for the drivers, particularly in the beginning. 

"I think while we understand: 'If I do this, [there is the question of] how does my competitor react? There is a bit of cat and mouse there, so that will be really interesting and exciting as we can't predict that completely."