Zak Brown states that McLaren will take a decision on its Formula E and or World Endurance Championship adventures by Q1 of this year.
McLaren announced its intention to review the Formula E programme at the start of last year but since that announcement, it confirmed its entry in Extreme E series. That certainly put the former on the backseat for a larger period of time.
With Audi, BMW and Mercedes leaving, it cautioned McLaren as they evaluated their stance. Formula E will see Masareti join the party, but if that’s enough to move the British outfit, it remains an unknown. Over on WEC side, the big factor is finding an engine partner.
Middle of last year, Brown found the LMDh category to be very interesting as it finally brought WEC and IMSA together. But for McLaren to take a step, they will need a support, especially on the engine side. Without it, it becomes difficult for them as a works team.
While there are ‘rumours’ of Volkswagen wanting to enter F1 and partnering with McLaren apart from Red Bull, whether that helps the British car maker to expand its horizon considering that the German manufacturer are to return to WEC, it is unclear.
It may become clear by the end of this quarter though as per Brown. “I think realistically it will probably creep into Q1 of this year which technically we are comfortable with,” he said to media including FormulaRapida.net. “What’s been driving our timeline is if we were to enter the technical preparation that would need to be done, to be prepared.
“We have done enough work on both Formula E and WEC series to be comfortable with the timeline moving a bit. And the reason the timeline’s moving is we’re just not in a position to make a decision yet, obviously, commercially it needs to make sense for us. We need to be comfortable where we’re at with our IndyCar, Formula 1 and Extreme E team.
“We completed our first couple days of testing in Extreme E. We are ramping up for a third car in IndyCar for 2023. So, I think it’s gonna be early in Q1 before we make any final decisions,” summed up Brown, who recently was spotted at the Miami GP circuit.
Here’s last from Zak Brown on the same topic
Here’s Juan Pablo Montoya signing up for 2022 Indy500
Here’s Pato O’Ward on his McLaren F1 test
Here’s Zak Brown on Andreas Seidl