McLaren in trouble as season continues until 2021? "Think Renault will deliver"

20 April 2020 at 20:25

GPblog.com

From 2021 the McLaren team will no longer drive with Renault engines, but with those of Mercedes. That change is a bit more complicated than initially thought. Next season the new regulations would be introduced, allowing the chassis to be developed around the new power unit, but postponing the new rules until 2022 puts McLaren in a somewhat tricky situation.

The 2020 chassis will also be used in 2021, but the Mercedes engine doesn't just fit in the chassis that now houses a Renault power source. For this reason McLaren has received a special dispensation to adapt the current chassis for next year. However, no changes may be made to the chassis that will directly improve its performance.

McLaren is limited

FIA is going to take a brief look at this. "For sure there will be restrictions in terms of how good we can integrate this power unit into the current car", says Andreas Seidl to Crash.net and others. "We have agreed together with the FIA that they will monitor together very closely that we are only allowed to do the changes that are absolutely necessary to install the Mercedes power unit."

The team boss of McLaren continues his story: “So they will monitor closely that we don’t change any other areas in the surroundings of the power unit that will give us additional performance gains", said the German.

Will McLaren still have engines for 2020 season in 2021?

Possibly the 2020 season will last until January 2021. However, the contract with Renault runs until 2020. Will McLaren then have to advance the last Grands Prix of the coming season without an engine? “If that really happens and we are going racing in January, I don’t think there will be any issue regarding our agreement we have with Renault. I think it is important to state that we have a great relationship there and an open and transparent relationship for this year. So I don’t see any issue there.”