“They wasted years of Mercedes engines”- Joe Saward cites Williams example to MCLaren’s probable hardship

“They wasted years of Mercedes engines”- Formula 1 journalist Joe Saward highlights the downside of McLaren purchasing Mercedes engine.

McLaren to elevate their challenge in Formula 1 has decided to purchase Mercedes’ power unit from 2021 onwards, abandoning the service given by Renault up till 2020.

However, according to F1 journalist Joe Saward, McLaren just installing a Mercedes engine would not fulfil their aspirations, as they will have to work harder than others to keep their momentum alive.

“There are some disadvantages as well because they have to learn new things about the new combination of the chassis with the engine. They don’t have the data that other teams have. But they do have more HP than with Renault, so that could be an advantage,” said Saward in Missed Apex Podcast.

“Changing engines is not as disastrous as it was before, but it is still complicated technology. With Mercedes, the engine is integrated into the chassis,” he said.

“Whereas the customer teams have to build the chassis around the engine. So that is a slight disadvantage. In the case of Williams, for example, they wasted years of Mercedes engines.”

McLaren is optimistic about the situation.

While Saward explained the complications around the power unit installation and its compatibility with the chassis to generate an efficient aerodynamics level, McLaren’s team principal Andreas Seidl is pretty confident with the resources provided by Mercedes.

According to Seidl, Mercedes have the best engine easily in the paddock. As mentioned above, it is already above Renault’s engine, which in the last two years lost two big customers- Red Bull and obviously McLaren.

There was a time when Ferrari’s engine was at par with Mercedes, but in 2020, the Italian outfit struggled with it, and eventually ended up 6th in the table.

In 2021, improvements are expected, but not enough for McLaren to rely on them for better results this year.

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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