McLaren\u2019s team principal Andrea Stella said the \u201cmain limitation\u201d of being a customer team of Mercedes has been the timeline it has to operate in.<\/p>\n
While the works team started strongly, other Mercedes-powered teams have found themselves playing catch up with the engine supplier being careful about when to release information.<\/p>\n
McLaren boss says \u2018push programme\u2019 behind power unit non-optimisation<\/p>\n
While rules state each engine must be the same from works team to customer team, there are still advantages to being the works outfit, mainly that you are privy to information far sooner than the customer teams.<\/p>\n
The optimisation of the engine rather than the engine itself has been highlighted as the key to Mercedes\u2019s strong start and McLaren\u2019s Stella said that while information is not held back, the Woking team has a shorter timeframe with which to work in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of power unit exploitation, I would say that the main limitation as a customer team has been the timeline,\u201d Stella said ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix. \u201cIt\u2019s been a pushed programme, like it\u2019s been pushed from all teams, for all competitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, certainly, it\u2019s been a programme, the delivery of the MCL40 that was pushed up to the last minute. The same has happened for the power unit manufacturers.<\/p>\n
More on McLaren from PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n
* Andrea Stella admits McLaren surprised itself as Oscar Piastri denied Suzuka win chance<\/a> \u201cSo, it\u2019s relatively normal that in this condition, as a customer, you tend to be a little bit on the back foot, and we are learning together with our HPP engineers how to use the power unit. They are learning together with us. It\u2019s not like information is held back. There\u2019s maximum sharing. We work very well with HPP and with our engineers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been world champions together three times in the last two years, so the relationship is great. It\u2019s more about catching up with the timeline. So, we remain pretty optimistic that, like I said before, we are now not far from maximum exploitation from a power unit point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n
* Lando Norris questions driver influence as F1 2026 regulation talks loom<\/a>
* Oscar Piastri admits \u2018big surprise\u2019 after holding off George Russell at Suzuka<\/a><\/p>\n