bluechris wrote: ↑09 Mar 2026, 13:03
SilviuAgo wrote: ↑09 Mar 2026, 12:56
There’s a lot of talk about the Mercedes engines and whether it's mandatory for McLaren, Williams, and Alpine to run the exact same engine as the factory team. People keep asking why Mercedes is considered so far ahead when McLaren has the same engines—something Russell even mentioned this weekend.
Let me explain it simply: it’s like being an engineer working on a new Samsung phone, developing both the hardware and the software. You’re involved from day zero—the testing, the features, the shortcuts, the performance tuning, everything. Naturally, at launch, I can buy the exact same phone with the exact same specs, but will I know how to use it as well as you do? No. I have to learn.
Can I know every trick and feature that you already mastered? No. I’m still learning. Can I squeeze out the same performance as quickly as you can? Not yet. But I’m getting there.
It’s the exact same thing with McLaren. It’s only natural for Mercedes to know everything—or nearly everything—about the engine they developed themselves. But McLaren is learning too. And the faster they learn, the quicker they’ll close that 1.0 to 1.5-second gap we saw in Australia.
I’m certain that after the summer break, we’ll see a different McLaren. Does this mean the title is lost for this year? Possibly. But starting next year, things will definitely get interesting. McLaren has the people and the expertise to quickly understand exactly what needs to be done. Let’s keep pushing!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HC8vw31WUAA ... name=large
Its exactly that, plus that MB had this engine in tests also were MCLaren had it the last moment in Australia so they need to catch up a lot on this. Fortunately they have the data from MBs now to analyse and get there i hope soon.
I am not 100% confident that this is the only issue.
Afaik, engine manufacturers are required to provide the same engine spec, hardware, software and configuration tools, to their customer teams. Whether this was done in line with F1 rules shall be someone else's problems - I have to believe in that this was the case as the FIA would surely have said something.
(Side Note: It is also clear that the customer teams have the option not to take it either.
(to be understood as their prerogative to decline e.g. a newer fuel pump because it would hand them a penalty (see RB Renault fuel pump problems in 2016-ish).
Secondly, as to when the PU shall deploy/harvest the energy and how fast(!) at that is surely determined by the teams as well. And the amount of harvest/deploy/timeframe at a given location on track, is another variable.
And this is again dependent on the overall aerodynamic efficiency of its chassis ...
Based on the only race so far
, I believe all of us saw that the Merc had some troubles early on fending off Leclerc's attack on the main straight before turn 11.
This was surely due to a different deployment strategy Mercedes implemented.
