{"id":722642,"date":"2026-06-08T08:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T08:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/722642\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T08:26:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T08:26:27","slug":"what-could-drive-mclaren-to-build-its-own-f1-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/722642\/","title":{"rendered":"What could drive McLaren to build its own F1 engine"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren<\/a> and Mercedes<\/a> were partners for nearly two decades, winning three Formula 1 drivers\u2019 championships and coming close to grabbing several more. Then, they underwent what Hollywood types would call a \u201cconscious uncoupling\u201d.<\/p>\n

In recent years, they\u2019ve rekindled a relationship of sorts, won another drivers\u2019 championship together (and two constructors\u2019 titles), and yet tensions remain between the two.<\/p>\n

McLaren was one of several Mercedes customers to voice disgruntlement at the beginning of this season over a perceived \u2018knowledge gap\u2019 between the factory team and its clients over how best to run the new power units. And CEO Zak Brown has been a regular critic of Mercedes\u2019 plans to acquire a minority stake<\/a> in the Alpine<\/a> F1 team, going as far as writing to the FIA to make his concerns clear.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

On Mercedes\u2019 side, it is well known that being beaten by a customer during the later years of the ground-effect era regularly moved team principal and co-owner Toto Wolff to outright fury. There will be those in Merc\u2019s Brackley factory sighing with relief that its position of pre-eminence has been restored this season.<\/p>\n

So, there are those in the F1 paddock who believe an opportunity lies in the next engine formula \u2013 by which I mean post-2030 rather than modifications to the present one, which has become an ongoing political and technical dog\u2019s dinner<\/a>. For the FIA and F1, the desired outcome is a format where development is sufficiently affordable for independent suppliers to compete, and the engine manufacturers have less political clout.<\/p>\n

Now, this will be a challenging process, and not only because declawing the manufacturers while keeping them engaged will require a supremely deft political dance. At the moment, the power unit regulations are essentially determined by a committee that includes the six manufacturers who are signatories to the Concorde Agreement \u2013 including General Motors, even though it is a Ferrari<\/a> customer for now.<\/p>\n

Putative independents therefore have no meaningful voice. Theoretically it is within the FIA\u2019s power to decide what the technical formula is after the present Concorde Agreement expires in 2030, and indeed president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has made it clear he is willing to do so.<\/p>\n

But this would be a very aggressive take-it-or-leave-it move that could alienate the commercial rights holder as well as the manufacturers.<\/p>\n

\"F1's <\/p>\n

F1’s future engine rules, both for 2027 and 2030, are the political hot topic right now<\/p>\n

Photo by: James Sutton \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Of the leading teams, McLaren stands to benefit the most from having its own engine. And, interestingly, Brown didn\u2019t explicitly rule out the possibility when asked about the post-2030 power units during a round-table interview in Monaco this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we’re not a manufacturer,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, we actually don’t have a seat at that table as far as the power unit group is concerned.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, now we’ve just got to wait and see what the regulations are. And if we find them interesting, then we’ll maybe take a look.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut until then, you know, you kind of know what we know as far as what the future may hold. So, I think it’d be a distraction at this point to do anything other than focus on where we are today and what we intend to be in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everything that we’re hearing from the president, V8, bigger ICE [internal combustion engine], the right fuel, less battery, hybrid, sound. All that sounds good.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy technical skills don’t go far beyond that. But I think that sounds like a great direction to travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Anytime a new regulation comes out, we’ll take a look and see if it’s something technically that’s interesting. Is it something fiscally that makes sense?”
Zak Brown<\/p>\n

For its road car range, McLaren developed its own engines in partnership with Ricardo, the eminent engineering consultancy whose founder, Sir Harry Ricardo, designed the cylinder heads for the fascinating 135-degree supercharged V16 engine in Alfa Romeo\u2019s stillborn pre-war 162 grand prix car.<\/p>\n

There is a historical irony here, because it was\u00a0McLaren\u2019s decision to go into road car manufacture in the Ron Dennis era that caused the initial schism with Mercedes. Dennis had secured the partnership at the end of 1994 after two seasons of desperately casting about for a competitive engine supplier after Honda\u2019s withdrawal in \u201992.<\/p>\n

Mercedes had made a low-key entry into F1 with Sauber, applying its badge to V10s built by Ilmor in Brixworth. Over the coming years it would step up its involvement to a takeover of that company, renaming it Mercedes-Benz High-Performance Powertrains (HPP). The engines were generally among the most powerful in F1, if not always the most reliable.<\/p>\n

When Dennis decided to branch out into road car manufacture \u2013 in competition with some if not all of Merc\u2019s model range \u2013 Mercedes took advantage of the Brawn team being up for sale in 2009 to become a constructor in its own right. The ending of the McLaren relationship was virtually inevitable from that point.<\/p>\n

\"McLaren's <\/p>\n

McLaren’s first relationship with Mercedes deteriorated when the Woking-based team ventured into road car production<\/p>\n

Photo by: Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

In recent years, they have come together again, after another period in which McLaren struggled to secure a competitive power unit deal, but it is very much a customer relationship and the political fault lines are clear. For now, though, McLaren has no viable alternative, hence Brown\u2019s diplomatic language.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m very happy with HPP,\u201d he said. \u201cThey’ve been a great partner. We’ve won a couple of championships with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though everyone said you couldn’t win a championship with a customer engine, I think we’ve proven that you can. I think priority one is to stay with Mercedes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they’ve been a great partner until the regulations come out. Anytime a new regulation comes out, we’ll take a look and see if it’s something technically that’s interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it something fiscally that makes sense? We’ll go through that process when that happens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think sitting here right now, we’re extremely happy with Mercedes and we anticipate continuing with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The future presents both clear opportunities and perils for both parties to this relationship. Much as Mercedes has compelling logistical reasons to supply fewer teams, cutting ties with its most successful customer would not be a good look.<\/p>\n

Its brand is still associated with winning the 2025 and 2025 constructors\u2019 titles, even if it didn\u2019t achieve these with its own team. Wolff is prudent enough not to let pride overrule commercial sense.<\/p>\n

\"McLaren <\/p>\n

McLaren is back-to-back world constructors’ champions with Mercedes power units<\/p>\n

Photo by: Steven Tee \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

For McLaren, building its own engine would be a technical and commercial risk. Money might be less of an issue as we cruise into the era of teams being billion-dollar franchises, but the challenge of building a competitive power unit depends on the final shape of the post-2030 regulations. The barriers to entry here may end up too high.<\/p>\n

There was an apt reminder of this in Monaco last Thursday, when Mika Hakkinen<\/a> took to the track in an M2B, McLaren\u2019s first F1 car, on the 60th anniversary of the team\u2019s grand prix debut. Mika, you\u2019ll note, did not apply pedal to metal at any point.<\/p>\n

In 1966, F1\u2019s \u2018return to power\u2019 with three-litre engines, marque founder Bruce McLaren bought a handful of Ford Indy V8s, hoping to downsize them from 4.2 litres. But neither the ministrations of a third-party engineering company nor McLaren\u2019s in-house guru Gary Knutson could make a success of it.<\/p>\n

Still, it made a lovely noise. But that didn\u2019t win trophies then, and it won\u2019t do it in 2031.<\/p>\n

\"Hakkinen <\/p>\n

Hakkinen demos the first McLaren F1 car – a lesson for the modern day team<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bagnall \/ Sutton Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren and Mercedes were partners for nearly two decades, winning three Formula 1 drivers\u2019 championships and coming close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,255891,578,576,577,590,1881,249565,82,261075],"class_list":["post-722642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-circuit-de-monaco","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mclaren","tag-mercedes","tag-monaco-gp","tag-sports","tag-what-could-drive-mclaren-to-build-its-own-f1-engine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722642","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=722642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}