The last time Formula One instigated a huge changed in the engine regulations back in 2014, accusations flew that Mercedes were not providing their powertrain customers with the same specification of power unit as the works team were running.

In fact the accusations were true given the FIA regulations failed to cover this loophole giving Mercedes a significant advantage over the likes of Williams, McLaren and Force India. At the time Ron Dennis, iconic shareholder and leader of the McLaren F1 team following the death of its founder Bruce McLaren had publicly stated that an engine customer team could not win a Formula One world title.

“The one thing that jumps at you, if you look at all the qualifications this year, is the time difference between the Mercedes-Benz works team and other teams. And by and large it is always in excess of one second, putting aside the pace that they can generate in a grand prix when they are on their back foot,” Dennis told Autosport.

 

 

 

How manufacturers hid information from their F1 customers

“My opinion, and it is an opinion held by many people within our organisation, is that you have no chance of winning the world championship if you are not receiving the best engines from whoever is manufacturing your engines.”

The McLaren boss was not accusing Mercedes of giving them “different engines” in terms of the hardware architecture but the core of the dispute centred around a number of other issues. Firstly, whenever a hardware upgrade – only allowed due to improved ‘reliability’ under the FIA regulations, Mercedes would get the engines first. The claim was they would be the guinea pigs to iron out any gremlins.

Further, McLaren did not have the  same access to the Mercedes engine software maps which exploited a number of hidden characteristics such as “party mode” used for an extra boost in qualifying. Mercedes software and aerodynamic engineers also had some 18 advantage in early sight of how the power unit would look and perform before their customers for 2014.

Years later, then technical directorPaddy Lowe revealed Mercedes had been sandbagging their own customers too. During the 2014 season the Brackley based team had “idled” their engines so as to not reveal the true nature of its power to the FIA and their customers. Although Toto Wolff firmly denied this.

Expected F1 engine rule change: Newey masterstroke that could transform Aston Martin

 

 

 

How McLaren became the first customer team since Brawn to win F1 titles

As is the case today, for financial reasons in terms of sponsorship money, different teams use different lubricant and fuel manufacturers even when running the same power unit as others. Mercedes have been in partnership with Petronus for decades whilst at the time McLaren’s lubricants partner was Mobil 1. In 2026, the world champions are in partnership with Mutil for their fuel and lubricants.

Yet the difference between the performance of the various lubricant and fuel manufacturers will be minuscule when considering the when compared to the other elements discussed.

So how did McLaren finally become the first power unit customer team since Brawn GP in 2009 to win F1 titles? The answer is simple. Due to the ongoing and protracted negotiations between the manufacturers on the specifications of the all new F1 powertrains first planned for 2021, the frustrated FIA decided to freeze all engine development from 2022. This included the software mapping which meant in effect the Mercedes customers now had exactly the same tools as their power unit supplier.

Further, there would be no ‘upgrades’ for each year 2023-2025, meaning the time delay for a customer to fully understand the implications was removed. The differentiators in Formula One then became in the chassis and aerodynamic designs of the cars.

Australian GP: Exciting – or Whacky races but serious danger is evident

 

 

 

Andreas Stella accuses Mercedes of a lack of transparency

Its no coincidence that three of the top four teams emerging in 2026, are ‘works’ teams and that the top two are F1 engine manufacturers who have been designing and building powertrains since the 20th century. Despite the efforts of the FIA to ensure there is a level playing field between manufacturers and customers this was always inevitable.

Once again McLaren are now accusing Mercedes of providing a “lack of information” to them as a customer team, following the high performance gaps revealed at the Australian Grand Prix. Further, it has been suggested that as Paddy Lowe admitted in 2014, Mercedes have been “sandbagging” their customers in terms of the genuine performance capabilities of the Brixworth produced F1 power units.

In qualifying George Russells pole position was a massive 0.9 seconds quicker than McLaren’s best driver Oscar Piastri and in the race on Sunday world champion Lando Norris finished some 51 seconds behind the winner George Russell.

McLaren team boss Andreas Stella has accused Mercedes of failing to give them proper data on the new powertrains in a timely fashion, suggesting his team is having to work it out for themselves.

Mercedes less dominant than Melbourne qualifying showed

 

 

 

‘We’ve been asking Mercedes for weeks”

In an interview in Melbourne, the McLaren team boss revealed the conversation over better transparency has been continuing for more than a month: “The discussion with HPP (Mercedes High Performance Powertrains) about having more information has been going on for weeks because, even in testing, we were pretty much going on track, run the car, look at the data, ‘oh, that’s what we have. Good, now we react to what we have’.

“That’s not how you work in Formula 1. In Formula 1, what happens on track, you simulate. You know what is happening, you know what you are programming, you know how the car is going to behave.”

Stella went on to accuse Mercedes of behaving differently than since the Woking based team became a customer in 2018. “This is the first time that we feel we are on the back foot even when it comes to the ability to predict how the car will behave and the ability to anticipate how we can improve the car.”

McLaren are not the only Mercedes customer who are suffering from a lack of transparency. James Vowels, team principal of Williams said the team was “caught off guard” by the efficiency in terms of the battery deployment levels in Australia. This too was the reason why Oscar Piastri sent his car into the barrier on the way to the grid at his home Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Paddock revolt in Melbourne: Teams furious with FIA

 

 

 

Mercedes works team has been favoured

Whilst Ferrari have accused Mercedes of ‘cheating’ the FIA’s compression ratio test to gain an advantage, the real crime for which Mercedes have not been held to account is how they are treating their customer’s as mugs.

Toto Wolff is hiding behind the line that with the new regulations, so, much is going on we can’t disseminate everything in the regular fashion, as we would like to do. “You can never deploy things to make everybody happy. But I think most important is we’re trying to provide a good service,” he told Sky F1.

Without damaging the crucial relationship with his powertrain supplier, Andreas Stella concludes his accusations with diplomacy. “The works team (Mercedes AMG F1) and HPP (Brixworth, Mercedes powertrain division) will have worked together for a long time. So, they will have collaborated, talked about how to use the power unit. That’s fair enough, but we’ll definitely intensify the collaboration with HPP because our understanding is that there is some low hanging fruit that we should be able to cash in.”

Stella is putting Mercedes HPP on notice with a polite request, but should they not provide the service Toto Wolff believes is in place, the dispute may escalate even forcing the FIA to regulate on the dissemination of all information, or penalise the Mercedes F1 operation.

 

 

 

NEXT ARTICLE: Max Verstappen started Australian Grand Prix with no battery power: What really happened?

March 9, 2026 by C J Alderson