Last Saturday Zak Brown gave a brief notification of McLaren’s interest in a potential Formula E entry in 2022.
“With the new generation car coming in 2023 (sic), and us no longer being the exclusive battery supplier, that’s a racing series that we find very interesting,” said Brown at last weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
“That’s something that we are starting to look at more closely.”
McLaren is unlikely to become a manufacturer entry for Gen3 happen not least because it would mean a commitment within the next 12 weeks. With even the current Formula E manufacturers still deliberating on whether they continue beyond 2022, it would take a huge leap of faith from the Woking marque at present.
But as a team it is more possible for McLaren to come in through a similar vein to how it has raced in IndyCar.
This model has more potential as a “name above the door” strategy, with a quality privateer racing team running the show and possibly a partner with relevant expertise, such as present F1 sponsor Arrow Electronics, with its semiconducting, thermal management and battery expertise.
Or, could Brown’s own United Autosports operation hook up with its Extreme E (and Supercars) partner Andretti for an electric dovetailing of programmes? Remember that Formula E is now a shareholder within Extreme E so a dual project is not particularly fanciful through that axis.
But with news of the £185m investment from a consortium of US sports investors under the MSP Sports Capital banner, there also came uncertainty for parts of its wider group. Among those number is McLaren Applied Ltd (MAL), the present supplier of the spec battery used in Gen2-era Formula E.
Although not formally precluded from being involved in Formula E with another entrant in Gen2 by the FIA, McLaren took the decision not to be, in order to ensure it couldn’t be compromised on supplier compliance and parity for competitors.
Williams Advanced Engineering faced partial backlash from competitors during the 2016 to 2018 period when it supplied batteries but was also the major technical partner for Jaguar. Should Jaguar commit to Gen3 Formula E a similar scenario could again occur should it continue with WAE in to the new era.
But at present the notion of McLaren becoming a full manufacturer entry in conjunction with MAL in 2022 should be treated with a degree of scepticism. This is mostly because the outlook of MAL’s business needs to be quickly stabilised in 2021.
MAL’s future is presently uncertain, largely due to the challenging pandemic-affected economy. It has trimmed its staff through redundancies twice over the last 12 months and is understood to presently have a modest supply of current or future major contracts.
“McLaren Applied has already refocused to strategically prioritise proven, high-growth revenue streams,” said executive chairman of the McLaren Group, Paul Walsh, in May.
It is not known what these are but MAL presently services F1 teams through its ECU deal and provides some WEC teams with engineering services, in addition to Formula E through what is essentially a joint partnership with the designers and suppliers of the battery Atieva, which is the technology arm of the Silicon Valley-based Lucid Motors.
Additionally, MAL’s tender for the Gen3 battery deal earlier this year was ultimately dismissed in favour of WAE’s offering. The Race understands that it and Atieva went separate ways on the tender, further diluting what has clearly become an uneasy relationship.
The precise reasons for this are unclear but it is known the partnership between MAL and Ateiva has been a difficult one since the end of 2019.
This in turn is believed to have somehow had a knock-on effect, with the Extreme E contract, initially announced as McLaren’s in 2018, then subsequently switched without detailed explanation to Williams Advanced Engineering in May of 2019.
An additional issue for the McLaren Group is that pre-COVID, it expanded its premises beyond the MTC to incorporate the Victoria Gate facility in Woking on a long-term lease. This is presently not being fully occupied as the pandemic continues to necessitate mostly working from home policies.
MAL’s future therefore is undefined, but at present its involvement in Formula E will cease in 2022. If the company were still to be within the McLaren Group though, it could be key to a team entry in Formula E due to its obvious knowledge already gained in the all-electric series.
But as already outlined, should McLaren decide to go Formula E, it is much more likely to follow Venturi and Envision in being a customer entity. With the F1 team switching to Mercedes power in 2022, it isn’t hard to see a similar scenario occurring in Formula E as the McLaren-Mercedes moniker famed for its 1990s successes returns to the racing lexicon.
Should more manufacturers follow Audi and BMW out of the door, a topic The Race highlighted is a real possibility last week, then powertrain manufacturers supplying more than one team will become very much the rule rather than the present exception.
Whatever happens, there are a multitude of issues for McLaren, particularly as a group entity, to address before it even considers expanding in to Formula E as a competitor.
But what we do know for sure is that with Zak Brown being a significant decision-maker in its racing activities, the very difficult can very quickly become the eminently achievable, whatever the odds.
