McLaren isn’t ruling out the possibility of building its own Formula One engines in future, according to chief operating officer Jonathan Neale.
The team has switched to Renault power units for the 2018 F1 season following an unsuccessful three-year alliance with Honda. However Neale told F1 Fanatic the discussions around the post-2020 formula may have a bearing on its long-term engine plans.
“In Formula One McLaren hasn’t historically done its own engine,” said Neale. “We’ve just signed a deal with Renault. The regulations are all changing, and only 50 per cent of the map has been released so far, so we don’t know the [exact] direction of travel.”
“But the commerciality of it for us? At the moment it’s not clear. You’ve got big teams like Mercedes who are spending a significant amount of money with a large organisation and an embedded infrastructure right now. If you’re selling – Ferrari make 35,000 engines a year for Maserati or something, as well as their own, 8,000 – but when you get to those kind of volumes, when you look at the kind of returns on sales that you get, we’re still a niche manufacturer, even though we’re making the thick end of 4,000 cars a year.”
“And we have a Formula One programme. We’re still not scaled, we’re not a scale manufacturer yet. But we are keeping an open mind, and look at this next phase of where is Formula One going and is there a chance to use our capital more wisely. But we don’t have any immediate plans to do anything other than getting ourselves back into health by working well with Renault.”
Go ad-free for just £1 per month
>> Find out more and sign up
Neale remains convinced that having a works engine contract with a manufacturer is the ideal arrangement the current rules.
“I’d go back to what Ron [Dennis] said. Ron is on record saying the right model under the current rules in Formula One for a team is to be a works-engined team, because you’ve got the strength and the power and the muscle of an OEM that has a strong marketing budget, and you have access to deep technology and capital investment, and then you can have the agility of a team to keep that thing nimble and keep it in a motorsport mindset.”
“I still believe that’s true and that’s the ideal situation. The last few years haven’t delivered that for us and we needed a break-out strategy so we can repair our business. So we’ll see. Ask me that at the end of [this] year.”
Don’t miss Dieter Rencken’s first column for F1 Fanatic, featuring his full interview with Jonathan Neale, later today. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates.
2018 F1 season
- McLaren staff told us we were “totally crazy” to take Honda engines in 2018 – Tost
- ‘It doesn’t matter if we start last’: How Red Bull’s junior team aided Honda’s leap forward
- Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
- McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
- Ricciardo: Baku “s***show” was Red Bull’s fault
Baron (@baron)
10th January 2018, 9:55
They could have done some work on this already during the past 4 years, at least it’s what I would have been doing, a back room ‘skunk-works’. Like Ron Dennis as a team owner I couldn’t be dictated to by a power unit supplier and I’d have to have independence from that cycle. Those in F1 teams who are customer PU teams know full well thay can’t compete against their supplier, indeed they’re actually told not to! and it hasn’t happened in the modern era. So, if you were born to race, how could you allow it to come to this? Ron absolutely knew this hence the punt on Honda but it could have worked out beautifully, that’s the truth. There is no way on God’s earth this current arrangement permits fair racing and the audience is getting screwed. Now that Mercedes & Ferrari have effectively got satellite teams “the games” gets worse & worse. Look what they did to the DTM? So yes, McLaren should think about their own PU – the hardware isn’t rocket science and they already own the control software.
Joao (@johnmilk)
10th January 2018, 10:37
Honda took this too literally, and they are exploding like rockets
Damon (@damon)
10th January 2018, 12:13
I think McLaren could’ve done sth some work on this during the past 20 years – since the success of putting McLaren F1 on the market.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
10th January 2018, 15:49
I don’t think using a McLaren built engine would have made a lot of difference in terms of performance in comparison to what Honda achieved, and I think they’d have ended up having to go to Renault.
Joao (@johnmilk)
10th January 2018, 10:35
For McLaren to go alone on this is a bit risky I think, more or less the same situation of Aston Martin.
They would be better of (probably) with a joint venture. They could do business with Williams maybe (?) the formula E power-train already has components from both of them, take an independent manufacturer, like Cosworth for example and they could do something very interesting, while sharing costs and having the benefits of an OEM.
Of course this is just fan-fiction from my part, but that’s how I see it working for teams like McLaren, Williams and maybe Force India (aren’t they expanding as well?)
Lee1
10th January 2018, 12:26
I said this before they announced the renault switch. They should have done a partnership with someone like cosworth or illmore and built their own engine.
Rafal
11th January 2018, 16:44
+Lee1
Ilmor is already bought by Mercedes long time ago… Means that Merc engines are actually developed by Ilmor engineers :) at least the non-turbo era ones…
McLaren current supercar engines were developed by Ricardo so why not to try build something with them?
Damon (@damon)
10th January 2018, 12:42
I think McLaren should be predisposed to doing this on their own as well as Ferrari and Mercedes.
After all, they are one of the world leading super car manufacturers (!), with all the know-how and infrastracture you could wish for starting such a project already in place.
The new technology they could easily transfer to their McLaren P1s and such, which – especially with no current Le Mans involvement – are being shaped around Formula 1’s characteristics (rather than LMP1).
McLaren’s 570s model is one of world’s best selling super cars:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/motors/5129902/these-are-the-best-selling-supercars-of-2017-and-theyre-worth-1-1million/
Quoting another source: “McLaren predicts the model will help triple the company’s sales volume by 2020,”
…and it turns out McLaren is THE most popular super car brand in the US:
http://www.autoguide.com/auto-news/2017/08/top-10-most-popular-supercar-brands-in-the-us.html
Lee1
10th January 2018, 13:00
The only issue with that is that they will be needing Electric drive trains for their future road cars… The ICE will only be good for the short term and even then an F1 engine is nothing at all like a even a super car engine…
Joao (@johnmilk)
10th January 2018, 13:04
I see what you saying @damon
But as they mentioned, it is still a niche market, hence my comparison with Aston Martin.
Mercedes and Ferrari reach to a much wider market than McLaren, they have volume on their side.
It would of course be very interesting if someday McLaren could appear as a engine manufacturer.
Damon (@damon)
10th January 2018, 14:13
I also think a joint venture, as you proposed @johnmilk, would ben the most favourable solution.
/I’m convinced McLaren are much better equipped to do it by themselves than Aston Martin though./
Markp
10th January 2018, 20:42
Popular on Facebook? That helps sell cars and profit…. Some stigy teenager likes them all evening bumping up this irrelevant figure whilst supercar buyers go for Ferrari and Lambo. Their sales are poor based off huge dealer pre registrations and depreciate like a stone. They need to do their own engine to bulk up the weak brand and the damage of the past 4 years.
Fil Cam
11th January 2018, 13:58
Those sales numbers are UK only, not worldwide. They’re still small compared to Ferrari, but they can aim to emulate Ferrari’s road car / racing operation in the future as they grow.
pastaman (@)
10th January 2018, 12:19
If this is the case, they need to have started working on it already.
Joseph (@bigjoe)
10th January 2018, 15:51
The other manufacturers have harped on about road relevence, so would McLaren join them in this? or wait until everyone agrees ICE is having less and less significance (almost on a monthly basis) then build an engine for a legacy series?
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
11th January 2018, 8:39
Well, I have high hopes McLaren would make a road relevant F1 engine and then stick it in their cars…
Especially if Mercedes hype car is a great success.
Imam sukoco
12th January 2018, 15:13
Honestly I do think Mclaren got the good PR aside from Honda slump .. every single race in couple years always highlights Mclaren sadly for its engine .. plus the geat Alonso radio comm and Daytona adventure add more PR drama .. theirs roadcars sales looks great.. 4,000 car/year on super-hyper car thats awesome .. I do think if their using their own engine and make copy-paste this year performance – yeeah you got the picture ..