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McLaren thanks FIA and Mercedes for uniqueness in Formula One
A customer team becoming world champions: a few years ago, it seemed unthinkable, but as a Mercedes customer, McLaren managed to do it. Andrea Stella explains why it is possible today and what role Mercedes has played in it, with the German team's boss also taking some of the credit for the Woking-based team's success.
Ron Dennis, former McLaren team boss, argued that you could not become a champion in Formula 1 as a customer team. So it was with this in mind that he made the choice to join forces with Honda in 2015. The exclusive partnership was supposed to bring McLaren back to the top in the long run, but the top was only reached again as a customer in 2024.
How McLaren became world champion as a customer team
However, Andrea Stella and his team proved in 2024 that this need not be an insurmountable problem. As a Mercedes customer, McLaren has been able to become champion, while Mercedes managed to win only a few races with the very same -their own- engine.
"That in itself is not something to be happy about. It is thanks to the regulations and the good work of the FIA to create equality in engines between customer and factory teams. We are pretty relaxed about it that we get the performance as a customer that the factory team also gets. We also have a good relationship with HPP (Mercedes High Performance Powertrains)," Stella told GPblog and others.
"It is an open conversation and we recognise that Mercedes F1 team has the final say on the design of the engine. But I think the conversation with HPP is good and we know they are listening to our opinion. I think our relationship is strong. So I want to say again that this is because of the good work of the FIA to protect customer teams so they can win races and championships as well."
How responsible was Mercedes for McLaren's success?
Mercedes team Principal and CEO, Toto Wolff, argued that while Mercedes itself did not end up lifting the trophy, McLaren's success showed the German engine division as the reference for all teams, stating that in the case of defeat, he'd rather be beaten by the team's customers. "I have zero problem with that because it shows us the benchmark's. There's no discussions about performance levels of the engine, no discussions about drivability of the engine, energy deployment or harvesting. None of that. The World Champion is our customer team with equal material, we fight for the same chance.
"They have a better chassis, or a better execution or better drivers, then that's completely fine for us. This is a success also from Mercedes Motorsport, a success for Mercedes and a success for HPP," added the Austrian before concluding, "We know that our work team is by far the primary objective to win."
This article was written in collaboration with Tim Kraaij
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