Guenther Steiner stated that McLaren needs to stop blaming its power unit supplier for the below-par results in Formula 1. For the former Haas boss, the team must “act like grown-ups” and develop its own engine.
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The comment comes at a time of great performance difference between the two teams using power units from Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains (HPP). While Mercedes has won seven of the first nine rounds of the season, leads the drivers’ and constructors’ championships, and has 333 points, McLaren has yet to secure a win and has 179.
During the British GP, Andrea Stella spoke again about McLaren’s difficulty in extracting the maximum from the power unit. “The way we exploit the power unit and its performance is particularly important. I have said this before, and it still seems that we have a small deficit in extracting the maximum from the HPP power unit,” he said.
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The manager also explained that the team identified this difference in performance analyses. “When you look at GPS overlays, it becomes clear that we need to keep our conversations open with HPP, because it seems we are leaving some performance on the table,” he added.
Stella had already addressed the topic at the start of the season, at the Australian GP. “We have work to do to explore the potential of the power unit. When I see the potential that HPP is managing to extract, it seems there is more performance available,” he said. He then added: “It’s not an obvious thing to solve. For us, it’s a learning journey, but we are certainly at a more initial stage than the factory team. What they are doing shows they understand much more, and maybe the flow of information hasn’t happened the way we expected.”
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