Good news for Mercedes’ three customer teams: McLaren, Alpine and Williams can expect performance improvements to their power units in Melbourne. The Silver Arrows will supply engines to the three teams in 2026, but for logistical reasons they did not run the latest specifications in Bahrain. That will change in Melbourne, however, after the homologation of the power units on 1 March.
Which power unit impressed most during the Bahrain test days? Different teams pointed at each other as the answer. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff called Red Bull ‘the benchmark’ for the coming season after the first day, and George Russell also said the Austrians’ energy deployment looked ‘the best on the grid’. Max Verstappen suspected the Silver Arrows of ‘sandbagging’ at the Bahrain International Circuit. Whether the Dutchman is right on that will have to wait until Melbourne. The three Mercedes customer teams — McLaren, Alpine and Williams — can, however, count on improved performance in Australia.
The three customer teams ran in Bahrain on slightly different power‑unit specifications than the works squad. For the Silver Arrows the test programme was all about shoring up reliability, which is why Mercedes chose to fit a previously proven spec to the three teams’ brand‑new engines. Mercedes itself ran the latest specification. Logistically, it was simpler for the German outfit to carry the newest parts for just one team.
New specification for 1 March
Mercedes must, however, bring the newest power‑unit specifications to Melbourne for all three teams, which means the teams can expect performance gains. The homologation of the engines — the FIA’s official approval — takes place on 1 March, ahead of the race in Melbourne. The Formula 1 regulations make it clear that customer teams must receive exactly the same engine specifications as the factory teams.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was asked by The Race about the current situation at his own team. “I don’t want to say too much about the hardware specifications,” he said. “I think that’s part of the strategy HPP (Mercedes’s power‑unit division) has put in place for the supply of the hardware, the power units, to customers and the works team. But the important thing is that the correct specifications are available for the first race. I have to say that the power unit we ran during this test performed extremely reliably and gave us the ability to carry out all the tests we wanted to.”
