McLaren wants its own engines
McLaren CEO Zak Brown is pushing to split from Mercedes power units and build in‑house engines — a deliberate Red Bull‑style play — while on track Oscar Piastri admits the team needs “pretty big steps” to catch Ferrari and Mercedes. (planetf1.com) (planetf1.com)
Zak Brown visited Red Bull’s Milton Keynes powertrain campus in February 2023 and opened talks with Red Bull and Ford about possible supply or technical collaboration. (formula1.com) McLaren still holds a formal customer supply agreement with Mercedes-AMG that was extended to cover the 2026 power-unit rules and run through to 2030. (f1technical.net) Brown negotiated a “seat at the table” with Mercedes in late 2023 to influence development of the new 2026 PU, even as he publicly praised Red Bull–Ford’s early 2026 power-unit work after the Barcelona shakedown. (speedcafe.com) Amid the 2026 compression-ratio dispute Brown described the row as “typical politics of Formula 1” while also urging FIA talks on energy-deployment rules after seeing rival developments. (motorsport.com) Oscar Piastri said McLaren “has no answer” to Mercedes’ roughly 0.6s advantage in sector three at Shanghai, noting his sector-one lap of 23.913s contrasted with George Russell’s sector-three 39.989s. (planetf1.com) Piastri also revealed he had “a pretty big moment” on his final Q3 run that wrecked his Chinese GP qualifying bid, leaving him to start fifth while admitting the team must take “pretty big steps” to close to the front. (racingnews365.com)
