McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has expressed doubts about the advantage of Red Bull’s new engine in Brazil. Following the São Paulo Grand Prix, the Italian voiced his concerns about both the impact on performance and the implications for the budget cap.
McLaren’s team leader discussed the potential performance advantage of a new engine. “In terms of performance, it makes little sense to introduce a new engine these days. I’m not exactly sure how this works with Honda, but generally, these engines show hardly any degradation when used,” Stella explained. He questioned whether such a drastic step in the current Formula 1 field is really worth it. “That’s why you normally don’t replace an engine and accept a penalty or loss of positions, because usually the performance improvement you get back does not compensate for the lost positions.”
Stella also addressed the budget aspect of the engine swap. “Honestly, these kinds of engine swaps also raise questions about the rules. I’m curious whether the cost of this engine now counts towards the budget cap or not. If the engine has been replaced for performance reasons, this should be included in the budget. We’ll see if that’s the case,” said the McLaren team boss. “Not that I can check, it’s entirely up to Red Bull, but this is also one of the reasons why we wouldn’t take such steps: it would indeed count towards the budget cap.”
