David Coulthard says Mercedes have used ‘interesting tactics’ against engine customers McLaren

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Mercedes should seek every competitive advantage they can against engine customers McLaren as long as they remain within the rules, David Coulthard says. The reigning world champions have received limited information about their 2026 power unit.

Martin Brundle suggested before the season started that Toto Wolff is ‘desperate’ to beat McLaren, who have upstaged the works team by winning back-to-back titles.

Speaking after the Australian GP, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said, via Sky Sports: “The discussion with HPP about having more information has been going on for weeks because, even in testing, we were pretty much going on track, run the car, look at the data, ‘oh, that’s what we have. Good, now we react to what we have’.

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“That’s not how you work in Formula 1. In Formula 1, what happens on track, you simulate. You know what is happening, you know what you are programming, you know how the car is going to behave.

“So, I have to say, since we are a customer team [of Mercedes], this is the first time that we feel we are on the back foot even when it comes to the ability to predict how the car will behave and the ability to anticipate how we can improve the car.”

David Coulthard backs Mercedes amid tension with McLaren

Speaking on the Up to Speed podcast, Coulthard said Stella was trying to put ‘pressure’ on Mercedes by speaking out publicly. Lando Norris, the sole McLaren racing in Australia after Oscar Piastri’s crash, finished fifth, over 50 seconds behind race winner George Russell.

Mercedes’ customers are ‘playing catch-up’, particularly when it comes to energy deployment, because they were running with an earlier version of the power unit in testing. But Coulthard says it’s only right that the Silver Arrows exploit their works status.

Williams boss James Vowles has indicated (via ESPN) that Mercedes’ greater knowledge is worth three-tenths of a second, despite the equipment being identical. Neither of his cars reached Q3 or scored a point in Melbourne.

“There’s some interesting tactics of Mercedes probably giving their customers information quite late,” said Coulthard. “Why not? They’re not in the business of having McLaren win, or their customers.

“You have to homologate and deliver in racing the same product to all the customer teams. I think Andrea Stella, if I can read between the lines, these guys only deliver something publicly if they really want to assert pressure.

“What I understood from that is that Mercedes gave their customer teams a good product for winter testing. They then gave them the real product for Grand Prix racing, and they were playing catch-up.”

‘The new iPhone with no instruction manual’ – Will Buxton on McLaren’s Mercedes engine issues

McLaren feel they aren’t receiving the support they paid for from Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, Coulthard’s colleague Will Buxton says. The contract between the two teams runs until 2030, the entirety of the current rules cycle.

There were suspicions that works teams could have an advantage following the regulation changes this winter, though the advantage could diminish over time as the knowledge gap narrows.

“It’s a mess, isn’t it?” Buxton said. “It’s a bold move, because you can’t imagine those conversations haven’t happened behind closed doors.

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“If they’re making it public, then it feels like a bit of a last resort of, ‘Hey, we’ve paid for a service and we don’t feel we’re getting it, so we’re going to make that public.’

“I found that to be a very bold move and indicative of discontent which probably isn’t limited to McLaren but probably extends to the other Mercedes teams.

“It almost feels like they’ve been given the new iPhone, but they haven’t been given the instruction manual.”

Alpine, the other Mercedes customer team, made a solid start to the new season with a P10 finish in Australia. They have replaced Aston Martin in the stable for 2026.