Stella: A good engine is just one of the important elements

Andrea Stella emphasized that McLaren’s decision to extend the contract with Mercedes for the supply of power units until 2030 is quite logical and obvious, but this is not the last link in the chain of factors on which the team’s future success depends.

Mercedes engines have proven to be very reliable, and McLaren only had problems with them at the beginning of the season in Bahrain, and at all other Grand Prix everything was very normal. Regarding the prospects for this cooperation, one of the main conditions of the new contract was the opportunity for McLaren to participate in the development of a new generation of power plants, to which Formula 1 will move in 2026. This will allow for more seamless integration of the engines built in Bricuscourt and the chassis that will be built in Woking.

“The decision to extend the partnership was very logical,” said the head of the McLaren team. “We are very happy with how things are developing and the Mercedes engineers have made an extremely important contribution to our progress this year.

It was also a fairly easy decision, thanks to the guarantees we received on a technical level, the company’s high operational standards and the solid foundation it had already achieved in preparing for 2026, as we could see.

We are pleased that continuity and stability in this area will continue. However, a good engine is only one of the elements needed to solve the problems we face. This is a necessary condition, but far from sufficient. To qualify for championship victories it is necessary to work very seriously on creating the chassis.

I have no doubt that we will be quite competitive when it comes to the power plant in the coming years. As for the chassis, even this year, in those stages for which we had not prepared any technical innovations, we immediately saw that our competitiveness was no longer at such a high level as in previous races. That is why we must first look at our own performance and ensure that we can maintain this momentum in the coming years.”