McLaren’s Eric Boullier has said that the team need to know which engine they will be running for the 2018 Season by September . Despite being half way through the 2017 Season, McLaren’s engine supplier for next season still remains uncertain.
McLaren set 2018 engine deadline
Earlier this season, a divorce between McLaren and Honda looked set to materialise, however, the team’s chances of securing a customer engine from either Mercedes, Ferrari, and Renault seems to have faded.
As teams are beginning to switch their efforts to designing their 2018 cars, Boullier admitted that McLaren needs to know its engine supplier in the next month. “Technically you could change an engine in 12 weeks,” he said. “If you want to do the very best job then the latest is September, if you want to do the best design.”
Recently, a return to Mercedes power looked like McLaren’s most probable alternative to Honda. However, at the British Grand Prix, McLaren’s Executive Director, Zak Brown, said that neither Mercedes or Ferrari were willing to supply engines to the Woking-based team.
“We’re a big team that knows how to win races and championships so I think most of the teams, while it’s a shame to see where we are, they like us where we are,” he said. “They don’t want to get us too close to them which is understandable.” With Mercedes and Ferrari being ruled out, it leaves Renault as the most likely alternative.
At the Hungarian Grand Prix last weekend, McLaren recorded its first double points finish of 2017. This allowed them to jump ahead of Sauber in the Constructors’ Championship to ninth place, suggesting that Honda has made inroads in engine performance and reliability. After the summer break however, the next two races are the Belgian and Italian Grand Prix. Due to the reliance on power that these two circuits require, a more accurate showing of the pecking order of engine performance will be shown and how Honda has progressed since the start of the season in March.
Main Photo
Embed from Getty Images
