McLaren says it never considered manufacturing its own engine, or aligning with Ferrari, when it was searching for a 2021 power unit deal.
It was announced during the build-up to the Russian Grand Prix that McLaren will renew its Mercedes partnership from 2021, once its three-year Renault deal expires.
But there was never a desire to seek a relationship with Ferrari, or to produce its own engines in-house.
“Obviously the Ferrari engine looks extremely strong at the moment,” acknowledged McLaren chief Zak Brown.
“But when you look at the commitment of Mercedes-Benz and where they have been, also as a race team, which is a great yardstick for us, we’ve not considered Ferrari.
“I think it’s also a clear brand clash with our McLaren road car business and from just making engines just fiscally it’s nothing that makes sense for us.
“I think you need to be a significantly larger OEM that can warrant the spend to justify all the exposure that it generates for a larger volume of car sales, which clearly does make sense for a Mercedes, a Renault, a Honda but doesn’t make sense for a McLaren given the volume of cars we sell.”
McLaren’s F1 Team Principal Andreas Seidl, who led the push to secure Mercedes power units, also cited the amount of time needed to play catch-up as an additional factor.
“Regarding our own engine, we just need to be realistic, it was never a topic really,” he said.
“To put up a Formula 1 power unit nowadays, you have to invest a lot of money, you need a lot of running budget each year and you would need a long way, or a long time, to catch up with what the others have put in place.”
