Last Updated on March 14 2026, 8:41 pm

At the 2026 Formula One season opener in Australia, there was a moment of deja vu for paddock observers as Mercedes utterly dominated the qualifying simulation runs in free practice three. George Russell was a massive 0.616 seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the works Ferrari, which sent shudders through the engineers at the rest of the team’s on the grid.

In qualifying, Mercedes was even more dominant, with Russell claiming his eight career pole position by a whopping 0.8 seconds from the next non-Mercedes car, Isack Hadjar.

Mercedes HPP engine customers were “shocked” by the gap given they were running the same power units. Williams boss James Vowels said he had been “caught off guard” by the efficiency of the deployment of the Mercedes power unit used by Williams. This led to speculation in some quarters that during testing in Bahrain, the Mercedes HPP engine customers had not received the final product which was being run by the Brackley based works team.

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McLaren accuse Mercedes of withholding information

Adding to the furore, McLaren team principal Andreas Stella revealed he had been ghosted by Mercedes powertrain division stating: “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’.”

TJ13 reported that Mercedes must provide its customers with identical power unit hardware and software under the F1 sporting regulations article 4.5 and that a technical directive issued by the FIA in 2018 sought to prevent manufacturers from abiding by the letter of the law and with holding crucial information about the optimal operation of the power units for their customers.

Technical Directive TD/005-18 states: “The purpose of [point] five of Appendix four to the F1 Sporting Regulations* is to ensure that all power units supplied by one manufacturer are identical in all respects, we have good reason to believe that this may not be the case. Whilst the dossiers for each team may be identical it would appear that some are being operated in a different way to others being supplied by the same manufacturer, this renders the purpose of [point] five almost meaningless.

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FIA sporting regulation 4.5

“It is therefore our view that all power units supplied by one manufacturer should be identical, not only in terms of the dossier for each team being the same, but we also feel they should be operated in an identical way. With this in mind, we will expect all power units supplied by the same manufacturer to be:

“i) Identical according to the dossier for each team and, unless a team informs us that they have declined any of the following, they should be:
ii) Run with identical software and must be capable of being operated in precisely the same way.”

As the drivers arrived in China, Lando Norris joined the debate implying that Mercedes had knowledge of how best to run the power units which they had not shared with their customer teams.Speakling in the paddock the world champion said: “It’s just early on in the season, there are a lot of things to try to figure out and understand, and it’s just that it’s not [been] told.”

“Certain things don’t need to be told, because you always try to create your own advantages. But at the same time, there are certain things we’re having to figure out for ourselves,” implying these details should have been disclosed to McLaren. “I don’t know what the rules are and what has to be said and what not, that’s down to Andrea and the rest of the team,” Norris concluded with a shrug of his shoulders.

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McLaren team boss offers Mercedes’ an olive branch

It appeared McLaren in particular were set for a showdown with their F1 powertrain supplier, which could see the FIA rule that Mercedes HPP were in breach of article 4.5. However, negotiations have continued behind the scenes and it appears Mercedes have appeased the Woking based F1 team principal who again spoke out on the matter after Grand Prix qualifying in China.

Following his usual lengthy Italian pre-amble about how much more complex these powertrains are than anything every seen before in F1, Stella appeared eager to defuse the potential row stating: “We are thankful to HPP for how supportive they are. They have given us the information we need, but somehow you need to run on track, and learn.”

Clearly something has changed in a week, following Stella’s accusations that Mercedes HPP were weeks behind in answering his queries. The McLaren boss goes on to explain, “Obviously, when you are works team, it’s normal that you will be more integrating. There is no IP, there is no protection of data. You just work as one entity.

“So fair enough that there’s a little bit of an advantage from this point of view. We’re not complaining about it. Our only focus is to learn as rapidly as possible, and exploit the power unit at its best.”

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Data inconclusive on whether McLaren have improved

A deeper dive into Stella’s remarks suggest Mercedes have insisted any failure to supply information to their McLaren customer was covered by IP (intellectual property rights), yet in reality this is smoke and mirrors. Any intellectual property held by HPP is relating to the architecture and design of the physical power train and does not cover how best it should be operated in a range of circumstances.

Stella concluded: “We are in a better position than we were in Australia,” he said. “I would like to thank our technical partners at HPP, because they’ve been extremely supportive in our journey of discovery, let me say, and optimisation.” Matter apparently closed and the politics behind the scenes has clearly  smoothed troubled waters.

McLaren are indeed in a slightly better position in China than a week earlier and whilst a crude measure, qualifying times are the most representative non-technical measure we have to understand how McLaren are progressing. The gap to the Mercedes pole sitter in Shanghai has shrunk from 0.8s to just 0.5s, although this must be mitigated by the fact George Russell had just one run in the final qualifying session due to technical difficulties.

Williams yet again have been having a nightmare this weekend, with a car reportedly significantly overweight. The strength of the Mercedes power unit for 2026 though is presented by the fact the first seven on the grid for tomorrow’s Grand Prix, are all running units produced by Mercedes HPP.

 

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