McLaren CEO Zak Brown has negotiated “a seat at the table” when it comes to having a say in Mercedes’ development of its new engine for 2026.
It was confirmed on Friday Mercedes would continue to supply power units to McLaren through to 2030, with the deal a five-year extension to the original agreement that started in 2021.
Crucially for McLaren, it is to play a greater role in the PU that will combine 50 percent internal combustion with 50 percent electrical power to deliver a maximum output of over 1000 horsepower, whilst also running on 100 percent sustainable fuel.
The agreement is highly unusual for a customer team, however, Brown has explained he felt it incumbent upon him to broker such an arrangement to ensure McLaren could compete in the future on a relatively equal footing.
“I’m of the view that you can win a world championship with a customer engine,” said Brown, speaking to select media, including Speedcafe.
“I know that in our new contract, without going into great detail, the areas in which you would have shortcomings by being a customer versus a works team, we’ve addressed that and we have a great agreement with HPP (Mercedes High Performance Powertrains).”
Whilst Mercedes will not specifically design a PU for McLaren, Brown confirmed his team now has “a seat at the table that we hadn’t had previously.”
Expanding on the arrangement, he added: “What it means, in reality, is we have more influence and awareness early on in their development.
“So we’re not handed a final product without having an input into what that final product looks like and having earlier awareness of where they’re headed.
“So the things we need to design around the power unit, we’re not starting that much later than the works team.”
Asked by Speedcafe whether that ‘seat at the table’ was crucial for McLaren moving forward with Mercedes, rather than switching to another customer, Brown replied: “Yeah.
“We definitely had areas that we talked over with Andrea (Stella, team principal), the technical, and the systems teams about the areas they wanted to see as progress in the relationship.
“We were able to land on those, and I think Mercedes likes the (McLaren) racing team, our level of competitiveness because it’s going to make them better, too.”
Brown confirmed discussions did take place with the other engine manufacturers, including Red Bull which enters into the PU fray for the first time in 2026.
“You would talk to them all to just understand, so we visited Red Bull,” said Brown. “I think it’d be hard to have a Ferrari in the back of a McLaren, but we did our due diligence.
“It was pretty clear to us we wanted to continue (with Mercedes).”
It was only 20 months ago, early into last season, that Mercedes’ customers, including McLaren, expressed concern over the apparent lack of power with the German manufacturer’s PU compared to its rivals.
As to what had changed over the intervening period for McLaren to continue with Mercedes, Brown said: “Performance has been great this year, reliability has been very strong, the relationship is really strong.
“And the new structure, with the agreement that we have, gets us much closer to them in the areas in which you would be in deficit as a customer.”
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