McLaren considered Audi switch but Mercedes remains Plan A

McLaren’s Mercedes gap exposes customer-team limits

McLaren’s start to Formula 1’s new regulatory era has been defined by a sharp contrast with Mercedes. After six races, the world champions sit third in the standings, already 126 points behind their engine supplier, with Lando Norris’ Sprint victory in Miami the only break in Mercedes’ early dominance.

Team principal Andrea Stella has now openly acknowledged that customer status is a disadvantage under the new rules, a point that echoes McLaren’s wider reliability concerns covered in our report on Stella admitting Mercedes customer status is hurting McLaren.

Stella explains the works-team advantage

"It’s because you have less opportunities to integrate, to stay on the same timeline when it comes to addressing reliability problems or exploitation of the power unit from a performance point of view," Stella said. "You have some experiments on the chassis side that you can add to a long run of the power unit when you are a works team."

That assessment underlines why McLaren’s situation is so delicate. The team is competing against Mercedes while relying on Mercedes hardware, and although the relationship appears to have cooled after earlier tension over perceived lack of support, the competitive compromise remains.

Audi option failed over control

According to The Race, McLaren did explore the possibility of splitting from Mercedes when its engine contract came up for renewal. One route under consideration was becoming an Audi works team, in a model compared with Aston Martin’s arrangement with Honda.

The idea did not progress because Audi wanted to own the team, and McLaren were not willing to surrender that level of control. Audi ultimately acquired Sauber instead.

McLaren have not ruled out creating their own powertrains division, following a route similar to Red Bull, but their stated Plan A remains continuing with Mercedes. The team announced in 2023 that the partnership would run through to 2030.

Reports earlier this year suggested some within Mercedes wanted to move away from supplying McLaren after Zak Brown’s squad won back-to-back constructors’ championships. For now, that immediate threat has receded. Audi have made a respectable start as a new manufacturer, but McLaren’s quickest route back toward the front still appears to be with a Mercedes power unit behind them.