Zak Brown’s answer to the idea of McLaren building its own F1 engine was tellingly modern: not “never”, not even “unlikely” — just “if it makes sense financially”.
That qualifier matters, because it speaks to where McLaren see themselves in 2026. This is a team that has spent the last two seasons cashing in on stability, winning constructors’ titles in 2024 and 2025 and delivering Lando Norris’ first drivers’ crown in 2025. The Mercedes customer deal has been a competitive shortcut in an era when the power unit is as much a software-and-systems exercise as it is horsepower. But it also comes with a ceiling: the moment the pecking order tightens, being a customer is an uncomfortable place to be.
Andrea Stella admitted early this season that the opening part of 2026 has been the first time McLaren have felt “on the back foot” — a pointed line in a sport where the best teams are rarely comfortable with any dependency they can’t control. Those comments, inevitably, reignited the familiar question: if McLaren are now operating like a front-line organisation again, why not take the final step and become a full works outfit?
Mohammed Ben Sulayem has added fuel to that conversation by floating a potential return to V8 engines for the next rules cycle, with 2030 or 2031 mentioned as the sort of timeframe being discussed. In the FIA president’s view, a cheaper, simpler powertrain formula could lower the barrier enough for a team like McLaren to finally do what the badge suggests it should be capable of: build the entire car, including the engine, under one roof.
As reported by Sports Business Journal, Ben Sulayem argued that complexity has been the blocker — that teams like McLaren have historically looked at the current units and decided buying was simply the rational choice.
Brown didn’t push back on the logic so much as he reframed it in boardroom terms. Speaking to SBJ, he said McLaren would consider it “if you got an engine formula that was financially viable,” while stressing that the team “couldn’t be happier” with Mercedes High Performance Powertrains.
That last part isn’t just politeness. McLaren and Mercedes have a relationship that’s delivering real on-track value and is contractually locked in, too: the two parties agreed a long-term extension in November 2023 that runs until at least the end of the 2030 season. In other words, whatever McLaren might one day want to do, there’s no sudden lurch coming — and no public flirting with alternatives that doesn’t come with consequences.
Still, Brown’s openness is noteworthy because McLaren have quietly been positioning themselves as an organisation capable of bigger technical swings. Outside Formula 1, they’ve already designed and developed a twin-turbo V6 for the MCL-HY hypercar project, built inside the McLaren Technology Centre and set to race in the World Endurance Championship from 2027. That doesn’t automatically translate to an F1 power unit programme — the scale, the regulatory nuance and the operational intensity are different beasts — but it does underline that McLaren aren’t merely dabbling in the idea of propulsion as an in-house competency.
The political subtext here is just as important as the engineering one. Customer teams can win titles — McLaren have proved that — but their performance window is tied to someone else’s priorities. Even with perfectly aligned supply and support, you’re still operating with constraints around integration, packaging philosophy, and the deeper layers of development direction. When you’re chasing marginal gains at the front, “good enough” isn’t a comforting phrase.
And there’s a second, less romantic truth: the works label only really means something if the numbers add up. A clean-sheet engine programme is one of the quickest ways to turn momentum into distraction. Brown’s “financially viable” line is the grown-up version of the old paddock dream. McLaren don’t need an engine for the sake of it; they need an engine if it buys them something they can’t get as a customer — and if the cost-to-advantage ratio survives contact with reality.
For now, the Mercedes partnership remains the sensible play, and Brown was clear about that. But the door being left ajar is the story. If the sport genuinely does pivot towards a cheaper, simpler power unit concept in the early 2030s, McLaren are signalling they’d at least run the numbers — and they want the paddock, and the rule-makers, to know it.
In an era where competitive cycles can hinge on who owns the most leverage before a regulation reset, that message may be the point as much as any eventual engine programme.
