Was McLaren’s success in F1 influenced by the FIA? According to Zak Brown, a particular decision by the International Federation significantly aided the British team. This decision had nothing to do with flexible wings or other illegal innovations but rather aimed to equalize performance among the cars on the grid.
McLaren’s triumph in the Constructors’ Championship of the recently concluded season surprised the Formula 1 world. Early in the season, it seemed Red Bull would remain unbeatable in 2024. However, the stagnation of development at Milton Keynes, coupled with McLaren’s remarkable technical progress, caught the paddock off guard.
Yet, such a significant achievement at the dawn of the new turbo-hybrid era would have been unimaginable. Until 2018, customer teams did not have access to the same engine mappings as the primary constructors. A team like McLaren, powered by Mercedes, would have struggled to keep up with the Silver Arrows.
McLaren, Zak Brown: “The FIA leveled the playing field”
McLaren’s CEO, reflecting on the reasons behind the Papaya team’s success, pointed to a decision made by the FIA in 2018: requiring official constructors to supply customer teams with Power Units identical to those used by their factory team. “I believe that was the most important change, bringing about total equality.”
“This was the differentiating factor between a factory team and a customer team: there were all these different engine mappings that didn’t have to be the same,” he explained to RacingNews365. “Once that rule was introduced, I was absolutely confident you could take the engine out of Lewis [Hamilton]’s car and put it in Lando [Norris]’s, and vice versa. It’s the same power unit.”
“The factory team has an advantage because it has a deeper understanding of the engine, and when designing their car, they can leverage that knowledge. But we’ve shown that with excellent work, you can overcome all of this.”
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