Where McLaren feels disadvantaged by Mercedes F1 customer status

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has admitted that some aspects of being a Mercedes customer have put it “on the back foot” during the 2026 Formula 1 season.

It has been a tough start to the campaign for the defending world champion team. Not only did McLaren start the season off the pace compared to frontrunners Mercedes, but it has encountered poor reliability.

McLaren suffered its first double ‘did not start’ in two decades in China, while reigning world champion Lando Norris has been forced to retire from the last two races. In Canada, Norris had a gearbox problem, while in Monaco, he dropped out with power unit issues.

McLaren has repeatedly praised its partnership with F1 engine supplier Mercedes over the years, however, Stella conceded there are some areas where the team now feels disadvantaged for the first time.

“Never before we felt that being a customer team has put us on the back foot. And when I say this, and I want to be clear here, to avoid any misunderstanding, it's not because you are a lower priority for [Mercedes] HPP”, Stella told media including Crash.net in Monaco.

“[It is] 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, combining the efforts when you use the facilities, and some experiments on the chassis side that you can add to a long run of the power unit when you are a works team.

“There are many reasons why reliability associated to the power unit [plays a role], or taking advantage of being a works team from a power unit point of view. I think these reliability issues have come into focus in 2026, when we had such a major technical regulation change.”

Stella said McLaren is facing challenges when it comes to addressing reliability concerns.

“That great relationship [with Mercedes HPP] allows us to review item by item, learn from each item and solve it technically. But when you don't know what's coming, it's not sufficient to simply address item by item,” the Italian explained.

“You ultimately need to review the depth, the intensity and the effectiveness of the various meetings, engagement, sharing of information, processes – from factory to factory, track to track, track to factory, and so on. The review is ongoing and is, in a way, punctual in terms of looking at each item individually.

“But it's also a wider review in terms of what do we have to enhance? Because in 2026, there's so much novelty, there's so many new things, and we kind of have to operate at a new level of collaboration compared to what we were doing before.

“These conversations have already started for some months now, but like everything in F1, there's always a lead time. It's not like you see the results the day after. So this is already happening and is relatively wide-ranging as a discussion.”

Stella was quick to point out that some reliability woes, such as Norris’s gearbox problem in Canada, were on McLaren’s side and had nothing to do with Mercedes.

“There's some, like the gearbox problem on Lando's car in Canada, which are purely on the McLaren side,” he added. “So I just want to be totally fair to our power unit supplier, with whom we've had a fantastic relationship, very successful. And still, the relationship is great.”