McLaren’s bad start in Formula 1 hasn’t defined their season.
As Japan has shown, they’re developing faster than anyone else on the grid.
Gemini isn’t just a sponsor logo on the sidepod. The pace of development since Bahrain testing makes that clear. When an AI partnership reaches across the entire team — engineering, operations, creative design, on and off the track — it changes how fast an organization can think, iterate, and execute. That’s what’s showing up in McLaren’s upgrade rate.
That’s the real headline. Not who’s fastest today. Who’s improving fastest.
Williams saw the same opportunity — deploying Claude AI company-wide — pit crew, logistics, mechanics, communications. Not a specialized tool for specialists. A thinking partner for every role.
Both teams understood something most organizations miss: F1 has always been a development race. The championship rarely goes to the team that started fastest. It goes to the team that improved most.
AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini don’t change that rule. They accelerate it.
When AI is embedded into workflows — not bolted on top of them — iteration cycles tighten across every decision. Weak ideas get filtered earlier. Strong ideas get pressure-tested faster. And in a system where performance is the sum of hundreds of coupled decisions, that consistency compounds.
Most companies are asking: “How do we use AI?”
That question lives at the surface.
The deeper question: What would our organization look like if AI was embedded into every thinking process?
Because that’s where the compounding begins. Not from access to tools. Not from experimentation. From workflows redesigned around AI — at every level, across every role.
It’s too early to say who will win in 2026. But watch McLaren’s development rate.
We now have five weeks until the next race. Car development will be critical for every team on the grid. The development clock is running. Five weeks of accelerated workflows — Miami is going to be very interesting.
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