MCLAREN AND MERCEDES ARE BACK ON
Just five years after Mclaren famously ended a long partnership with Mercedes, on grounds that it felt it could never win a championship as a customer team, the two parties have agreed to reunite for 2021.
Back then it was former Mclaren boss Ron Dennis who, frustrated by Mercedes’ works entry, declared that a decision for his team to link up with Honda from 2015 was based on competitive reasons.
“My opinion, an opinion held by many people in our organisation, is you have no chance of winning a world championship if you are not receiving the best engines from whoever is manufacturing your engines,” he said.
The Honda marriage proved disastrous and ended with
a messy divorce. And while Mclaren’s switch to Renault has helped the team recognise and address underlying issues with its technical approach (and put it on course for best of the rest behind the top three this year), it has not stopped it electing to hook up again with Mercedes.
While it’s famously said you should never date an exgirlfriend, Mclaren thinks a reunion is the right thing to do. For where once there could have been differences between works and customer engines, now the rules are clear that all specifications must be the same.
Speaking about the potential for taking the fight to Mercedes, Mclaren CEO Zak Brown said: “I’m very confident that Mercedes supplies [equally]. You can look at the telemetry, it’s clear that’s what in Mercedes Grand Prix cars is the same in the Williams and Racing Point cars. If we do a very good job with our team, execute, our drivers do a good job then I think we can. But I think you’re going to have to be on your A game.”
The impetus for the switch has come from Mclaren’s new team principal Andreas Seidl, who arrived at Woking empowered to do what it takes to make the team win again. First he got commitment from Mclaren’s shareholders for a new windtunnel, and now has helped sort the Mercedes deal.
Brown added: “I asked him when he joined what do we need to do to get back to the front. He led the decision here on the power unit. It was of course a group decision, but one that was driven by Andreas.”
Mercedes’s decision to expand to a third customer deal has come amid a push to increase its bottom line – since any extra income will be welcome as F1 heads to a new financial structure.
Toto Wolff [Mercedes team principal] said: “The 2021 regulations look totally different and will change the landscape. We need to look at numbers, also in the same effect I don't believe there are big downsides.”