martinbeiker wrote: ↑14 Jul 2019, 15:04
Eddie Jordan: McLaren to use Mercedes engines
While it sounds more like a wild rumour I don’t think it is totally impossible. Imo, it depends on Mercedes’ road car plans.
We have to think about it from a marketing perspective. There is a marketing purpose for each of these teams being in F1. There was a time when racing was just about driving crazy fast and winning - a passion. But when it becomes a business, it has certain goals. They don’t just run racing cars only for victory and passion anymore. Racing has to make business sense.
Ferrari is here to sustain their racing heritage and ultimately add value to the cars they sell. Ferrari road cars indeed get their brand value through the racing pedigree...so are McLaren road cars of late. Mercedes, Renault and Honda are here to test new hybrid technologies and tell the world their road cars are from champions of an ultimate engineering challenge and they can provide the customers with the best products. Red Bull cars are nothing but expensive sign boards for an energy drink! Williams and McLaren have other businesses that supply some bespoke parts and stuff for other high tech companies. Maybe Racing Point have some vision too.
So, Mercedes’ interest and purpose in F1 remains only as long as they want internal combustion engine in their road cars. If they want to convert all their road cars into electric cars, they would rather compete in FE. I mean, if you mainly sell steak, why would you compete in some vegan cooking contest to promote your brand?
In that case, Mercedes as a works team can pull out of F1 as the best team of the era and focus on FE. But they don’t have to retire the PU when engine rules remain same/similar. They can become a works team with McLaren again! That is more profitable than shelving the PU project along with works team. They have to merely do R&D to develop an already existing bulletproof PU through the seasons. That’s a relatively small investment which would actually make them profits as McLaren moves to top and by selling them to customer teams.
More interestingly, McLaren supplies very important drivetrain components to FE. If Mercedes change their focus completely to FE, it would make sense to partner with McLaren in some way.
By joining hands and putting investments together, McLaren would run a Mercedes powertrain in F1 and Mercedes would use McLaren powertrain in FE. If they see some benefit for both of them it would be a great plan. Anything can happen in business. Ill feelings never come in the way of profits.
Ps. You don’t have to believe a word in this. It is merely a speculation of potential logic behind such a switch.
