McLaren boss Andrea Stella has praised the FIA for its role in ensuring parity between engine suppliers and customers.

McLaren became the first customer team of the hybrid engine era to win a title, with the British squad securing the Constructors’ Championship in 2024 for the first time since 1998 at the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Andrea Stella: Thanks to the FIA

In the early years of the hybrid era, the rules did not clamp down on how engines supplied to customer teams could differ based on software.

For instance, while an engine manufacturer could supply a physically identical engine to a customer, it was not required to divulge all information on how it might operate that engine itself, leading to suspicions that there was a disparity in performance between supplier and customer.

This was addressed in 2018, with the FIA moving to introduce regulations to clamp down on any possible disparities – supplied engines must be of identical specification to the manufacturer, and supplied with identical oils, fuels, and software.

McLaren became the first team of the hybrid era to win with a customer engine supply, supplied by Mercedes, in 2024. This put to bed the notion that only works teams or manufacturers can win the title, a sentiment that formed a primary reason behind McLaren’s ill-fated swap to Honda power a decade ago, due to former team boss Ron Dennis’ feelings on the matter.

With McLaren becoming the team to prove Dennis wrong, Andrea Stella praised the FIA for their work on ensuring parity when asked about the topic by PlanetF1.com.

“In itself, it’s not particularly satisfying because I think nowadays, thanks to the regulations, thanks to the good work that the FIA have done in terms of creating parity, as to the way the engine is used between customer and works teams,” Stella said in response to a question from PlanetF1.com about winning the Constructors’ crown as a customer team.

“To be honest, we are pretty relaxed that the performance of the customer power units is as good as the work teams.

“Also, we have a very good relationship with HPP (Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains), very open dialogue, and while we appreciate and acknowledge that ultimately, it’s always going to be Mercedes that will have the final say as to our layout, for instance, but I think the dialogue with HPP is good, and we know that they are listening to our opinions.

“And once again, I would like to say that this is good work that has happened by the FIA in protecting customer teams so that they could have their opportunities to win races and championships, without having to be a works team.”

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McLaren has a ‘seat at the table’ with Mercedes

As a customer of Mercedes, McLaren CEO Zak Brown revealed last year that he has negotiated a “seat at the table” with Mercedes to help shape the development of its future power unit for the new F1 2026 regulations.

Speaking to Australia’s Speedcafe, Brown said he wanted to broker such a deal in order to ensure McLaren could compete on an equal footing.

“I’m of the view that you can win a world championship with a customer engine,” he said in the wake of McLaren’s announcement it will remain powered by Mercedes until 2030.

“I know that in our new contract, without going into great detail, the areas in which you would have shortcomings by being a customer versus a works team, we’ve addressed that and we have a great agreement with HPP (Mercedes High-Performance Powertrains).

“What it means, in reality, is we have more influence and awareness early on in their development.

“So we’re not handed a final product without having an input into what that final product looks like and having earlier awareness of where they’re headed.

“So the things we need to design around the power unit, we’re not starting that much later than the works team.”

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