The decision to postpone the new 2021 technical regulations by a year will not affect McLaren’s plan to change engine suppliers next season, the team has confirmed.
McLaren announced last year they will swap Renault’s power units for Mercedes at the end of this season.However the disruption to the start of the 2020 F1 season has prompted F1 to delay the introduction of new technical rules for next year. The teams supported the decision which also means they will use their 2020 chassis again next year.
That presents a problem for McLaren, as their chassis will now have to be altered in order to accommodate the different dimensions of the Mercedes. Power unit designs are partly specified by the rules, but can differ considerably between different manufacturers, and customer teams have to work around the compromises of fitting a unit they have not designed into their chassis.
Nonetheless a McLaren spokesperson confirmed to RaceFans they intend to go ahead with the change in power units as planned and will modify their MCL35 as needed.
McLaren is the only team which has arranged to change power unit suppliers at the end of 2021.
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2020 F1 season
- Pictures: Wrecked chassis from Grosjean’s Bahrain fireball crash to go on display
- Bottas vs Rosberg: Hamilton’s Mercedes team mates compared after 78 races each
- F1 revenues fell by $877 million in Covid-struck 2020 season
- Hamilton and Mercedes finally announce new deal for 2021 season
- F1 audience figures “strong” in 2020 despite dip in television viewers
Phylyp (@phylyp)
21st March 2020, 17:09
Good to see this – it’ll be nice to see how the McLaren does with a class-leading PU, especially given that we might not see much chassis evolution between 2020 and 2021.
Chaitanya
21st March 2020, 18:08
What would be more interesting is the fight between pink Mercedes and McLaren and how they close up to RBR and SF in front of them.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
21st March 2020, 18:14
Excellent point. Yes, with the same PU, it’ll be nice to see how their respective chassis compare, and if RP’s “inspired” design actually lives up to the original’s performance.
ancker
21st March 2020, 18:40
It will be very interesting, but it seems McLaren has a very steep uphill battle compared to the other teams.
Everyone else can stretch their 2020 chassis for 2012, McLaren has to adapt to a new PU.
They might end up with similar HP numbers, but ultimately be slower due to compromises they had to make in retrofitting the chassis or adjustments to the aero package.
Of course, the alternative is that they excel in 2021 with Mercedes power, then backslide in 2022 if they struggle with the new-spec PUs.
Jon Bee
21st March 2020, 18:48
I seem to remember Brawn having to switch from Honda to Mercedes power in a matter of weeks. How did that work out?
Phylyp (@phylyp)
21st March 2020, 19:13
It was an unmitigated disaster. /s
Seriously though, back then, I think it was the double diffuser that masked any aero inefficiences that might have been introduced into the chassis due to the rapid shoehorning in of the Merc engine.
Does McLaren have an equivalent of the double diffuser up their sleeve? Unlikely, since if they had something they would have used it in 2020 at the latest. Otherwise, such a trick would be heavily dependent on the new aero regs, so it can’t help them with their 2021 chassis.
bosyber (@bosyber)
21st March 2020, 20:18
Brawn himself says it was the well developed outwash front wing (ie. the outwash that over the last 10 years helped make overtaking more and more difficult – though to be fair, Newey also has spotted it, but didn’t have the double diffuser ;), and the aero concept that used it (with of course the dd, which probably curtailed the Red Bull dominance period to 4 years, forcing it to start half a year later!) @phylyp, @jimmi-cynic – as you say, it was a big disaster, that car, led to the team going under and needing years to recover under another name!
Imagine that Williams, having the double diffuser idea on the car as well, would have had the same use of it as Brawn, but with a compromised chassis due to changing PU, one can only imagine where they’d be now, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
anon
21st March 2020, 21:56
@phylyp switching to the Mercedes engine did indeed cause quite a few issues for Brawn.
As he has mentioned before, because Honda had a completely different layout for the ancillary components, the team had to fabricate a large aluminium spacer to fit between the back of the survival cell and the front mounting of the engine. They had to redesign part of the chassis to fit the new engine, whilst there were also issues with the Mercedes and Honda engines having different centres for the crankshaft that meant they had to modify the gearbox as well.
In retrospect, Brawn did admit it caused a few issues with the overall weight of the car and with the centre of gravity being slightly out of sync with that which was best for the tyres, but it was the case that the double diffuser helped mask those issues in the early to mid part of the season. It was a bit of a bodged job, but it was the best they could do that close to the start of the season and with the fairly limited resources that they had.
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
21st March 2020, 19:16
It was terrible for Brawn. After just one season, the team was swallowed whole by Mercedes.
Within 4 years, the assimilated team became the ongoing target of internet derision due to their racing dominance.
Ross Brawn himself was sent into exile – later forced, at gross money-point, to become Liberty’s spinmeister and FOM’s infectious disinformation specialist. ;-)
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd March 2020, 6:37
@Jon Bee @phylyp @bosyber @jimmi-cynic
Switching between different manufacturers on the engine-side wasn’t as challenging in the V8-era, than switching from one to another during this modern V6-turbo era, though.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
22nd March 2020, 6:44
@jerejj – yep, that’s an excellent point. It’s not just the core ICE that needs fitting in, its also the intercoolers and all the hybrid tag-alongs (e.g. battery pack) that need to be situated.
anon’s comment above also mentions that even back then, Brawn had a difference with the CG of the car, and they needed various shims and spacers.
It’ll be a nice engineering and management puzzle for Seidl – how much valuable time and budget to invest in this single-season car, and how much for the future.
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd March 2020, 7:05
I forgot to add @anon in my post.
bosyber (@bosyber)
22nd March 2020, 18:26
@jerejj definitely, I think we were just fooling around a bit, but clearly it wasn’t ideal then, and even more so today would be quite an undertaking for McLaren to do this; then again, it’s a relatively straight forward thing (and one might argue they have recent experience doing such a switch), even if that doesn’t make it trivial at all.
Robert
21st March 2020, 21:31
Theoretically a team could introduce a new chassis at any point in a season, right? So McLaren could make a new chassis specifically for the Mercedes power unit but race it in the last race this year with a badly fitted Renault bolted to it. Then use that chassis for 2021 claiming it is “last years” (2020). If they wanted to…
Jimmi Cynic (@jimmi-cynic)
22nd March 2020, 4:12
That’s a valid option. Only problem… it is unlikely there will be a 1st or last race for F1 in 2020.
Then there’s the other problem. Will there will be a FWONK that operates F1 in 2021? Will fans accept a 2 car grid?
Jere (@jerejj)
22nd March 2020, 6:38
@jimmi-cynic Don’t worry, there’s going to be some racing this year. I’m positive about that.
Lauri (@f1lauri)
24th March 2020, 20:01
The top 3 (currently still) rich teams: We’re already developing 2020 car to be raced in 2021. We need to get the development finished by the Friday of last race this year.