Is it now more advantageous for racing teams in 2026 to be a works team or a customer team? Oscar Piastri – driver at Mercedes customer team McLaren – can see how a works outfit might hold a small edge for the upcoming season when a completely new engine regulation comes into force. Still, he’s happy with McLaren’s position: ‘We have a very close relationship with Mercedes’.
McLaren must try to defend not one but two titles in 2026. Not only did the British outfit clinch the constructors’ championship for the second year running last season, driver Lando Norris also secured his first world title. McLaren must do that while relying on Mercedes’ power unit, but according to Oscar Piastri that is not a disadvantage.
“Being a factory team obviously has its advantages, especially now that there are developments on the engine side,” the Australian explained to the media. According to Piastri, it helps that Mercedes communicates openly about the power unit. “We have a very close relationship with Mercedes HPP (the engine division of the Silver Arrows), which is very favourable for us. All the teething problems we had during the test in Barcelona had nothing to do with the fact that we aren’t a factory team. We might be a bit behind since they’ve had years to properly integrate these rules into their car, but we’ve also been working on that process for a long time.”
Impressive Mercedes
McLaren is not the only Mercedes customer team; Williams and Alpine also take the Silver Arrows’ power units. For the German squad that paid off during the private test days in Barcelona: reportedly Mercedes was the only engine manufacturer to run thousands of laps at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Piastri was particularly impressed by the Mercedes team itself.
“It will come down to who over the past twelve months has been able to benefit from aerodynamic testing and simply got everything in order,” the McLaren driver continued. “That was especially impressive with Mercedes — how they immediately set about it and could turn out more than 150 laps every day, which is probably the most impressive thing so far.”
