The helmet is the one place you can display your sense of style in your race gear. Talk us through your designs for this season…

Oscar: We can pick our own number and our helmet. Mine definitely has origins from when I was a kid racing in go karts. A lot of the colours and positioning are pretty similar to what I first had 15 years ago, with just some subtle evolution and tweaks. Once you've got colours that you like, you're associated with them, so normally you stick with them. Some people have their lucky helmets. I just go with what looks cool.

Lando: It’s me. It’s my brand. I used to love designing my own helmets and coming up with different ideas by sketching growing up. A few years ago, we changed to the yellow and black blob design to create something more unique that we can turn into my brand. This season, there’s a little star on it.

Which are your favourite pieces from the new collaboration?

Oscar: I’ve tried the brown fleece, and it’s really nice and warm. For me, you can’t go wrong with a black hoodie. It's got some cool graphics on the back, so that's my pick of the bunch.

Lando: Well, it's been winter, so I'm looking at the fleeces. I would wear the white fleece all the time. The fleeces are just comfortable, simple and nice to travel in – the brown is lovely too. The jeans look like just a normal pair of jeans, but when you get closer, you can see they have style and something unique with the McLaren logo. Plus, they come as a set with the leather collar jacket. 

You obviously have to look after yourselves as athletes. Are you doing anything new this season? 

Oscar: Not necessarily this year. It's a constant refinement and evolution. As an athlete, you always need to be well recovered and prepare yourself as much as you can, especially in our season. There’s not a whole lot of time in between to get yourself ready, so it's just the basics like eating well, and making sure you're training, recovering and sleeping enough.

Lando: Not anything new, just a bigger focus on recovery. Normally, after training I just want to go home and go to dinner with my mates. But recovery makes you feel better – sometimes immediately, sometimes the next day and eventually you start to see an effect over time. I actually almost start to enjoy making sure my body is in a good way. 

Any rituals that you return to season after season?

Oscar: I have a set routine. My meals are more or less the same each weekend: pasta with tomato sauce and chicken – a simple, good combination of carbs and protein. I have that 24 Sundays of the year and 24 Saturdays of the year. My pre-session warm-up routine is also the same every time. It's half an hour before every session: skipping, resistance band work, warm up my neck, and some other little bits. Physical preparation definitely is part of the mental preparation. Your body and your mind understand that you're preparing. But there’s a fine line between underpreparing and overthinking, so finding that balance is something I try to do as well.

Lando: I tend to try and keep quite open with things. Before races, I normally do a stretch and some warm-up stuff with my trainer. But sometimes I do 20 minutes of it, sometimes I do five. Sometimes I'll just have a nap. Sometimes I just listen to music. I just do whatever I'm in the mood for, then I feel comfortable and ready because I've just done what I like to do. If I'm in a good mood and relaxed, then I normally perform well.

You’re both seasoned travellers. Any tips to share?

Oscar: I always like to travel with noise-cancelling headphones. They have always been a big win for me. Other than that, it’s just making sure I've got enough TV shows downloaded so that I’m not sitting there for hours, bored out of my mind.

Lando: There are no hacks. The biggest thing is not sleeping when I shouldn't – when you lie down on your bed, and you're like, ‘Oh, I could really do with a nap right now.’ They feel like the best naps in the world, but they’re normally the killers that completely upset your jet-lag plan. My trainer sets everything up – when I should have food, when I should train, when I need to see sunlight, when I should wear my blue-light glasses, when I can use my phone and when I shouldn't – because everything has an effect. I always carry headphones to block out noise and eye masks so I can sleep when it's light.

Let’s talk rule changes for the 2026 season. What are you most looking forward to?

Oscar: There are a lot of new things that separately would have made differences, but all together, it's going to be a big revamp. There are some driving-style tweaks that come with any new car and one of the positives from the new rules is that the car is a bit lighter. The cars, year on year, have always got heavier – they are nearly 200kg heavier than 20 years ago, which you definitely feel in terms of the nimbleness of the car and just the actual lightness of the car. So I think that's a good step.

Lando: Probably just the challenge of it all. It's the biggest rule change I've had in F1. It's just a big challenge in adjusting driving styles because you are driving a different car, and we’re all adjusting to the new power unit, because you have to drive the engine in a different way compared to previously. Every race weekend we go into now, instead of just asking how you can drive your way in the best way possible, you also have to ask, ‘How can I do that, but also drive the way the car needs to be driven?’ There’s definitely extra energy being expended on that, so there's more preparation on different areas overall. Not only do I need to do simulator work, but I need to make sure we're prepared in terms of what gears I'm going to use. You also have to set up the car differently.

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