Andreas Seidl and Andrea Stella heap praise on McLaren partnering with Mercedes from F1 2021 onward and how it has benefited their team.
The 2021 F1 season’s technical regulation changes regarding car floors, brake ducts, aero tweaks among other aspects of the car was not the only thing that changed for McLaren. They had their engine replacement done from Renault to Mercedes.
It was suppose to align with the big regulation changes but the pandemic pushed to one year further, but the commitment between McLaren and Mercedes was already done. It is a transition that team principal, Seidl, states that they are very happy about.
The smooth transition was one that was hoped for and ultimately achieved with high power performance levels as seen this season. The Mercedes power unit has a notorious reputation that precedes it in the motorsport world.
Its performance ability and power is something that made it all the more exciting for McLaren – something that was hoped for and their rivals has noticed it well too. Seidl and Stella both commented on the reliability of the power unit itself.
“Obviously looking at this first races, now we’re very happy with how the switch to the Mercedes power unit went,” said Seidl when asked by FormulaRapida.net. “I mean there was a reason why we wanted to switch to the Mercedes power unit, because, I think it is clear with everything we have seen in the past, how confident the Mercedes power unit is, it is clearly the reference in this sport when it comes to performance and reliability, so there were no surprises.”
While talking about McLaren getting into the mix with Red Bull and Mercedes at the top, Stella, Racing Director, commented on how the improvement of the power unit in the MCL35M is certainly one of the reasons for the high performance level the F1 team is able to operate at.
“We were a bit surprised, I have to say at some races to be able to compete so closely with Mercedes and Red Bull, like for example, the second race in Austria, we were genuinely very close to pole position and genuinely quick in the race, even if in the race normally Red Bull and Mercedes they tend to open up the gap compared to the midfield, that’s a trend we have seen throughout,” said Stella.
“I think the reason is certainly from last year, we are happy with what we have been able to improve to the power unit this has been important but we are not the only car running an HPP power unit. Aston Martin they’re running an HPP power unit as well, so I think, this is credit to the development of the chassis that McLaren have been able to achieve in a way some operational aspects and I would like to mention as well the drivers.”
On top of the power unit itself, Seidl was also incredibly pleased with the teamwork and cooperation between McLaren and the team from Mercedes. The Woking-based team and the Brixworth party, both worked in the winter in order to make the integration of the power unit as smooth as possible despite the pandemic.
“Reliability so far has been great also thanks to the great cooperation with the guys from Mercedes after the power unit switch and I’m obviously very happy with that,” said Seidl when talking about the season, operationally, for the car. “We’re very happy and it was simply great to see over winter how, let’s say, our team together with the team from Mercedes approached this challenge of integrating the power unit and how smooth it actually went despite being in the middle of a pandemic and despite most of the work being done from home office. Reliability has been great so far as well so, very happy with that. One reason where we could score all the points this year.”
The article was written by Selena Aburas
Here’s drivers speak on how MCL35M felt initially
Here’s McLaren and Ferrari on upgrades
Here’s Daniel Ricciardo, Andreas Seidl on chassis swap
Here’s Andrea Stella detailing on their car’s strengths/weaknesses and more