Reliability issues leave McLaren boss, Andrea Stella questioning his team's role as a customer of Mercedes.

Miami proved to be something of a false dawn for the Woking outfit, for, other than a disastrous tyre strategy in Canada, Lando Norris retired with a gearbox issue, while in Monaco he suffered a second consecutive DNF due to a power unit failure. Indeed, what was to be a special weekend as the Woking team started its 1,000 Grand Prix, turned out to be a relative disaster with both drivers consistently off the pace.

Whilst making it clear that he is not blaming Mercedes for his team's current woes, Stella questions the whole issue of being a customer team.

"There's certainly an important reality check that comes from Canada and Monaco," he admitted, according to Motorsport.com. "And the reality check is first of all looking at the facts, we have not been fast enough, I would say especially in terms of race in both Canada and here.

"We have not been reliable enough and when we look at reliability, we have had issues pretty much in all areas of the car. It's not like a specific area. Here was power unit. We have had other issues with the power unit. I would say this has probably been the most important area for reliability, but for Lando in Canada it was the gearbox.

"Never before have we felt that being a customer team has put us on the back foot," he added. "And when I say this, and I want to be clear, to avoid any misunderstanding, it's not because you are a lower priority for HPP.

"It is because you have less opportunities to integrate," he explained, "to stay on the same timeline when it comes to addressing reliability problems or exploitation of the power unit from a performance point of view, combining the efforts when you use the facilities, and some experiments on the chassis side that you can add to a long run of the power unit when you are a works team.

"There are many reasons why reliability associated to the power unit plays a role, or taking advantage of being a works team from a power unit point of view. I think these reliability issues have come into focus in 2026, when we had such a major technical regulation change."

In 1995, McLaren began its relationship with the Mercedes, being the German manufacturer's works team. However, when Mercedes bought Brawn in late 2009, in order to enter the sport as a constructor, McLaren became a customer team.

In 2015, McLaren made the disastrous decision to re-partner with Honda, before switching to Renault. Since 2021, Mercedes has once again powered the British outfit, culminating in back-to-back constructors' titles in 2024 and 2025 and the drivers' crown last year.

"That great relationship allows us to review item by item, learn from each item and solve it technically. But when you don't know what's coming, it's not sufficient to simply address item by item," says Stella, when asked what is being done about reliability.

"You ultimately need to review the depth, the intensity and the effectiveness of the various meetings, engagement, sharing of information, processes, from factory to factory, track to track, track to factory, and so on. The review is ongoing and is, in a way, punctual in terms of looking at each item individually.

"But it's also a wider review in terms of what do we have to enhance? Because in 2026, there's so much novelty, there's so many new things, and we kind of have to operate at a new level of collaboration compared to what we were doing before.

"These conversations have already started for some months now, but like everything in F1, there's always a lead time. It's not like you see the results the day after. So this is already happening and is relatively wide-ranging as a discussion."

Careful not to play the blame game, the Italian insists that McLaren and Mercedes enjoy a strong relationship, and that recent reliability issues are not all related to the German manufacturer.

"There's some, like the gearbox problem on Lando's car in Canada, which are purely on the McLaren side," he admits. "So I just want to be totally fair to our power unit supplier, with whom we've had a fantastic relationship, very successful. And still, the relationship is great."

Thing is, where do they go. Zak Brown has previously talked of McLaren going down the Red Bull route and producing its own engine, but admitted that cost would be a concern.