Despite losing Aston Martin to Honda, Mercedes look all-set to retain McLaren as engine customer in 2026
Even though Mercedes have lost one customer team because of Aston Martin pairing up with Honda in 2026, McLaren might stay with them.
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When Honda announced their exit from Formula 1 in 2021, the sports world was surprised that the Japanese engine supplier had decided to bow out at their prime. Max Verstappen had just gotten his debut World Championship title and Red Bull narrowly missed out on the Constructors’ title to Mercedes, but Honda did not show any signs of returning to F1. Even then, Honda announced their tie-up with Aston Martin for the imminent 2026 season, thus promising a comeback to the sport.
Now, Aston Martin are still a customer team of Mercedes as they receive their engines from the Brackley outfit. But this year, Lawrence Stroll‘s team have surpassed the Silver Arrows and captured the second spot on the World Championship standings, proving that AMR is currently in better form than their engine suppliers. Thus, the Silverstone-based outfit wanted to leave Mercedes and go for a different supplier that would take them further towards their goal of becoming the World Champions. This led them to sign the partnership deal with Honda for their upcoming ’26 campaign.
But Aston Martin are not the only customer team of Mercedes on the current grid–there are McLaren and Williams Racing as well. In 2026, a plethora of changes in the rules that govern Formula 1 are supposed to be established, and seeing Mercedes’ current struggle, there are speculations that the other customer teams might also leave their side to pair up with other engine suppliers. Negating all the rumors, McLaren have now indicated that they are going to stick to Mercedes in 2026 as of now.
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella denies all rumors of an engine deal with Red Bull
Red Bull are currently the highest-ranking team in Formula 1, and the RB-19’s speed and power are proof that the Milton-Keynes-based team will stay on the top for the next few years to come. Thus, a rumor arose that McLaren might shift base and sign a deal with Red Bull to get their engines from 2026.
But Andrea Stella, the Team Principal of the papaya squad, commented, “I can confirm there is no link. We had conversations with Red Bull a few months ago as part of the due diligence in exploring what’s available on the market in terms of power unit for 2026, but at the moment we are quite advanced in our negotiations with HPP, so there’s no conversation ongoing with Red Bull.”
Currently, McLaren’s situation in Formula 1 looks unexpectedly poor after their previous campaigns, especially in 2020. The team has only amassed 17 points till now, and are in the sixth spot on the World Championship Standings, behind the likes of Ferrari and Alpine. But, in order to improve upon their results, the Woking outfit is looking for ways to make their car more competent and now, it only remains to be seen whether the team can deliver on their promises of a good finish to this year’s F1 season.
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