McLaren boss Zak Brown extends hope on Mercedes engine reliability

McLaren Formula1 team boss Zak Brown has recently given his verdict on the reliability issues that the Mercedes F1 team and its customers faced during the 2021 Formula1 season.

It has been stated in motorsport.com that the Mercedes Formula1 team was locked in a tight battle with RedBull for the 2021 title and during the season Mercedes had to endure a lot of grid penalties because of the durability concerns regarding their power units.

The 2021 rules regarding power units limited teams to a maximum of three units, however, both the Mercedes drivers had to take more than the allotted limit.

Valtteri Bottas used the most number of combustion engines during season 6 whereas his teammate Lewis Hamilton managed to use up five.

Mercedes were not the only team that had to go over the allotted limit, their customers Aston Martin, McLaren, and Williams were also forced to run a fourth combustion engine during the second half of the season.

Formula1 is entering an engine freeze from the 2022 season onwards and for this reason, there has been urgency on the part of Mercedes to fix the issues before locking their engines till 2025.

Zak Brown optimistic about Mercedes power units

There are still a few weeks to go till the first testing and Mercedes would be looking to do their absolute best so that the problems of the previous season don’t haunt them during the 2022 Formula1 season. In light of this McLaren F1 team boss, Zak Brown has recently shed light on the state of affairs at Mercedes.

McLaren Team Principal Zak Brown has said “They’re feeling good about their development,” explained Brown. “We, fortunately, had good reliability last year. As you know, there’s more than just the power unit that goes into the reliability.“

“I think our guys did a good job of working with the power unit in year one, so reliability hasn’t been maybe the same level of concern with us that it has with others.”

“I spoke with Toto [Wolff, Mercedes team boss] last week about it. And he was pretty bullish.“

“I think the power unit race is as close as ever, but I’m not worried about it.”

Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff while talking about the issues of the 2021 season last year indicated that they had to go super aggressive with their engine development for the 2021 season because of the Ferrari’s power units gains in 2019.

While stressing on it he said “We were pushed very hard in 2019 and came with a power unit in 2020 that was right there, but maybe it stretched us too much,” explained Wolff towards the end of last season.”

“If you are in the constant pursuit of performance, sometimes reliability falls behind. And I guess this is what happened.”

Also Read: Alfa Romeo change F1 team name and logo for 2022