McLaren questions Mercedes engine gap at Silverstone

McLaren went into Silverstone as the only Mercedes-powered team still without the latest power unit, and Andrea Stella said a Mercedes qualifying tactic also exposed uncertainty over whether his team can access the same level of power-unit exploitation as the works outfit.

Zak Brown, McLaren CEO, said before the British Grand Prix weekend that the team was still waiting for the updated Mercedes engine. “We need to get the current Mercedes engine. We’re the only one without the new engine, which will be coming for us shortly,” Brown said. He made clear the delay was not the result of a dispute with Mercedes, adding that McLaren simply still had usable mileage left on its current pool. “You’ve got to cycle through your engines, and we’ve got life left on our current engines, so we need to wait till we do an engine change.”

That left McLaren in an unusual position, with Mercedes, Alpine and Williams all already running the newer specification. Brown said Williams moved earlier because Carlos Sainz needed a change after “his issues,” adding that the order of introduction was “just a timing sequence.” He also dismissed any suggestion of rising tension with Mercedes over the wait. “I wouldn’t say it’s a frustration. It is what it is and we just keep our head down and keep pushing hard and it’ll be in the back in the not too long.”

The bigger concern at Silverstone was not only the missing latest-spec unit, but how Mercedes used its power unit in qualifying. The works drivers were seen lifting fully off the throttle just before the line, a method that avoided the stepped reduction in electrical deployment that applies when the car remains at full throttle. Stella said the move caught McLaren off guard.

“It surprised us a little, because it’s not something we had discussed before, and I’m not entirely sure it is available to us,” Stella said on Saturday evening. He added that using the power unit that way likely “requires further elements” to make it possible.

Stella said McLaren was still in technical discussions with Mercedes HPP over how to extract everything available from the package and over the reasons it had not yet received the newest specification. He stopped short of turning that into a public dispute. “We trust HPP,” Stella said, adding that Mercedes’ engine division had been “totally instrumental” in McLaren becoming world champion twice, so “this does not change the foundations of the relationship.” He added: “Hopefully it happens at the next event.”

Those unanswered questions mattered because Stella tied them directly to McLaren’s lack of pace at its home race. He said that even after accounting for aerodynamic drag differences, “there are still question marks” over McLaren’s straight-line performance. At Silverstone, the team principal admitted McLaren was effectively only the fourth-fastest car, with the power-unit specification and its use now part of a performance gap the team still has to close before the summer break.