{"id":339245,"date":"2025-12-11T23:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339245\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T23:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:58:15","slug":"mclaren-williams-and-alpine-face-mercedes-axe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339245\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren, Williams and Alpine face Mercedes’ axe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercedes CEO, team principal and co-owner Toto Wolff<\/a> has said the team’s power unit supplier role will be reviewed and one of its customer teams will be dropped.”Our current mindset is, also discussing with Ola, that we will reduce the amount of teams we\u2019re going to supply in the next cycle.”- Toto Wolff.\"norris-maclaren-champion-abu-dhabi-f1\"\/<\/p>\n

McLaren clinched the Constructors’ and Drivers’ title with Mercedes power units. Photo: RacePictures.<\/p>\n

As of the end of the 2025 season Mercedes will no longer supply power units to the Lawrence Stroll-owned team, which will use Honda engines as of next season. Yet Wolff has stated the German outfit is looking to cut a team or two from its list of F1<\/a> customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur current mindset is, also discussing with Ola, that we will reduce the amount of teams we\u2019re going to supply in the next cycle,\u201d Wolff told the Beyond the Grid podcast, noting that \u201cbetween two and three\u201d customer teams would be the sweet spot.<\/p>\n

\"sainz-post-season\"\/<\/p>\n

Williams gardnered three podium finishes with Mercedes power units across the F1 2025 season. Photo: Race Pictures<\/p>\n

Regarding the final number of teams Mercedes would consider continuing to provide engines for Wolff said \u201cIt depends on new regulations going forward.<\/p>\n

“Are they rather simple or not? What is it we believe we can learn by supplying more [teams] whilst at the same time needing to lock in some designs earlier?\u201d<\/p>\n

In Honda’s case, Wolff observes that the Japanese manufacturer is considerably under less pressure than Mercedes’ power unit factory at Brixworth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re Honda on your own [it will be] four or five. So that means longer lead times, longer production cycles.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo [considering] all of that, going forward, it\u2019s not going to be four anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercedes ponders on the pros and cons<\/p>\n

Managing Director of Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains Hywel Thomas also weighed on the benefitial and detrimental factors behind supplyin power units to a large number of teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve shown in the past that having more than one team [means] you\u2019re getting more data, you\u2019re getting more information, you\u2019re [covering] more kilometres,\u201d he said of the upsides.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because you\u2019ve got all those cars. You\u2019ve got four times the engineers all sitting around telling you \u2018no, you can do this better, you can do this more this way\u2019, and that is very, very beneficial to have all that coming at you. It doesn\u2019t always feel like it, but it definitely is in terms of making a great product.”<\/p>\n

\"russell-abu-dhabi-f1\"\/<\/p>\n

George Russell finished P4 in the Standings, with Mercedes locking P2 in the Constructors’ in Abu Dhabi. Photo: Race Pictures<\/p>\n

However, the intense workload, and the shorter times available to make key decisions mitigate the pros. \u201cBut the flip of that is we\u2019ve got to make a lot of hardware,” Thomas said.<\/p>\n

“We have got to make a few decisions earlier. I\u2019m not sure making those decisions earlier really hurts you sometimes because you can run things a bit too close to the wind, I think. That is the flip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not even sure whether the right place is one team, two teams, three teams, four teams. I\u2019m not sure. There\u2019s definitely a sweet spot in there somewhere and I think it\u2019s probably nearer four than one,\u201d Thomas concluded.<\/p>\n

Williams ups the ante for F1 2026Williams<\/a> ended a standout 2025 F1 season with three podiums and fifth in the Constructors\u2019 Championship, a major jump from ninth in 2024. Team principal James Vowles said the progress exceeded expectations and was achieved without sacrificing focus on 2026. Read Vowles full comments here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to stay up-to-date with what happens in the F1 paddock? Then GPblog’s F1 Paddock Update video is the perfect way to do it. Subscribe to GPblog’s YouTube channel and turn on notifications to never miss the latest episodes.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes CEO, team principal and co-owner Toto Wolff has said the team’s power unit supplier role will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[71688,49,48,578,28673,576,577,590,130550,82,4503,1196],"class_list":["post-339245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-alpine-f1-team","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-f1-news","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mclaren","tag-mercedes-amg-f1-team","tag-sports","tag-toto-wolff","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}