McLaren missing out on key Mercedes upgrade at British GP
McLaren has brought a one-off livery with it to the British Grand Prix.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown has confirmed the team is not yet running Mercedes’ latest power unit upgrade at Silverstone, despite fellow customer teams already introducing the updated engine.
Customer teams have the right to access the latest version of a factory power unit as part of the regulations, but with McLaren having mileage to complete on its current engines, McLaren drivers do not yet have the latest version.
McLaren not utilising latest Mercedes engine upgrade
Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust
After Red Bull was set as the power unit benchmark in early FIA testing, Mercedes was granted one ADUO [Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities] update to try and add power to its power unit.
The new-spec engine has now debuted, and while fellow customers, Williams and Alpine are thought to have taken new power units, McLaren has not yet done so.
Any performance gain in Formula 1 is always sought after on the grid, but with only limited parts teams are allowed to take throughout the course of the year, maximising each power unit part’s capabilities is important for the teams in order to avoid grid penalties later in the year.
Confirming the team did not request Mercedes’ newest specification at Silverstone, Brown explained McLaren could benefit from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards.
“You’ve got to cycle through your engines, and we’ve got life left on our current engines, so we need to wait till we do an engine change,” Brown told PlanetF1.com and others at Silverstone.
“Williams got theirs because Carlos [Sainz] had his issue, so he needed an engine change,” he added, before looking towards Alpine’s Steve Nielsen, “I don’t recall exactly [Alpine’s] scenario, but I think you’ve got two of them, so it’s just a timing sequence thing.
“You’d want it as quickly as you can, but you need to run the cycles through the engines. Obviously, you can move things in and out, but we’ll have it soon, hopefully next race.
“Of course, we’d like to have it. Any time you have performance that you know is coming, but you don’t have it on your car yet, you want to get it as quickly as possible.
“I won’t say it’s a frustration, it’s just what it is, and we just keep our head down and keep pushing hard, and it’ll be in the back in not too long.”
After early retirements and a double DNS in China, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris sit one point apart and fourth and fifth in the Drivers’ standings respectively, with McLaren third in the Constructors’ table.
With most of the season still to go, Brown has been cautious in labelling the teams’ development battle throughout the campaign, knowing there is more to come from the MCL40.
Looking ahead to the British Grand Prix
British GP predictions: False Lewis Hamilton hope, Russell on toast, McLaren resurgence
British Grand Prix weather: What is the risk of rain this weekend?
Ferrari has led the way in terms of having brought upgrades early on in the season and, while McLaren has not brought the same quantity just yet, there is still time.
“Ferrari and Red Bull have been very, very close,” Brown said. You look at the list, and it doesn’t necessarily always give you a clear story, but I think Ferrari and Red Bull have done a fantastic job with their upgrades.
“We’ve done a fantastic job with our upgrades. We’re a little bit behind. I think it’s very early in the season to draw conclusions, because you don’t know when everyone’s going to deploy their upgrades.
“So, hopefully, we’ll have as many as Ferrari has, and you don’t know when their next one’s coming, so I think the whole story is a bit early in the year, because you deploy them when they’re ready, they got them ready earlier than ours.
“We have just as many upgrades coming, we just haven’t put them on the on the race car yet, because they’re not quite at the level that we’d like it to be before we reproduce the parts. Clearly, Ferrari and Red Bull have done a fantastic job.”
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.
You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!
Read next: ‘Look like kids and clowns’ – Verstappen joins Hamilton in LEGO F1 race criticism
