McLaren failed to make Chinese GP after separate power unit issues

McLaren’s failure to start the Chinese Grand Prix with either car was the result of separate Mercedes power unit faults that affected the same component.

Lando Norris did not make it out of the garage for the laps to the grid ahead of the race in Shanghai, with McLaren having previously said work had been ongoing due to an issue on the electronics side that it believed it had rectified. While the focus was on Norris’ car, Oscar Piastri’s was then wheeled off the grid after the national anthem having failed to fire up, and despite both drivers jumping in the cockpit while in the garage, they never emerged into the race.

“Obviously a disappointing day, quite frustrating, because we go racing to be on track, and today we saw two McLaren in the garage while the other cars were racing,” team principal Andrea Stella said.

"What happened today is that on Lando's car, in preparation for the laps to the grid, we saw that there were problems with the electrical side of the power unit. We couldn't communicate with this component.

“We tried to rectify the problem – we tried to change as many parts as possible without having to change that part specifically, because it would take a long time and we couldn't have made it to the start of the race. We reprogrammed, but there was no way to fix the problem. And Lando's car was simply just not in condition to leave the garage.

“On Oscar's side, the car was able to go to the grid with no issues at all. But once on the grid, the car wouldn't fire up again, in a similar manner to Lando, but actually on Oscar's side, it was easier to diagnose the problem.

“It appears to be a problem with the same power unit component on the electrical side, but a problem of a different nature. So it's quite exceptional and uncharacteristic that you have two terminal problems pretty much at the same time on the same component, which in this case is on the electrical side of the power unit.

"We will review together with [Mercedes] HPP [High Performance Powertrains] the reason for these faults. And like I've said to everyone in the team and to HPP, we go as one team. And as one team we will face this disappointing day and we will make sure that it doesn't happen again in the future.”

Stella says the fact that both cars suffered problems was coincidental, but that McLaren will have to wait for further analysis from Mercedes to understand the catalysts.

“So at the moment, these issues are understood in terms of what the problem is, but they are not fully understood in terms of the root cause,” Stella said. "This will require inspection, physical inspection, because from the data we had available or from a superficial external inspection, there's nothing that is pointing at a specific, more detailed, root cause compared to generically saying that the problem is in a certain area.

“Obviously this is an area of the car which is not under McLaren's control, so we rely entirely on what is reported by HPP, and we trust completely their report, and according to their report at the moment the two problems are of a different nature. So it looks like it's just a coincidence that they happened at the same time, at the same grand prix, and they were both of a terminal nature.”