Engine start: McLaren and Mercedes collaboration comes back to life

The return of the McLaren-Mercedes combination is now very close. The new Mercedes engine from McLaren has started its official 'fire up' at the factory, will this be the season that McLaren can make the next step?

McLaren have progressed a lot in recent years. In 2015, it opted for a new route with Honda, but that went disastrously wrong. Honda failed to deliver, but McLaren's car didn't work very well either. They found that out when they made the switch to Renault engines in 2018 and were beaten by Renault and Red Bull Racing.

In 2019 and 2020, McLaren struck back under the leadership of Andreas Seidl and James Key. With the Renault engines, McLaren finished fourth and third in the Constructors' Championship over the last two years. Renault do not have the best engine, that accolade is still with Mercedes, and let McLaren just have good connections with this manufacturer.

Where at the end of 2014 the cooperation was ended because the customer could never compete for the title, McLaren now wants to make that last step to the top with Mercedes engines. In the year in which little has changed to the regulations, McLaren still has a lot of work to do to fit that engine into the chassis, but if they manage to do that, they might make another step forward.