David Croft suggests McLaren drivers will feel ‘fear’ after Mercedes engine trouble
· Yahoo Sports
David Croft has suggested that McLaren’s drivers may be racing under a bit of anxiety after recent issues with the Mercedes engine.
McLaren’s season got off to a rocky start, highlighted by technical problems in Shanghai that kept both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri from even starting the Chinese Grand Prix.
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In Canada, it was another setback. A poor strategy call on the grid meant both Norris and Piastri were out of the running before things even began.
Despite these early setbacks, there’s still belief around the paddock that McLaren have enough time to recover and potentially mount a title challenge against Mercedes.
David Croft thinks McLaren drivers might start to feel nervous
Speaking ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix, Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft raised concerns that Russell’s retirement could be worrying for Mercedes’ customer teams. In 2026, Mercedes also supply power units to McLaren, Williams and Alpine.
Croft said he’d be worried and would race with some caution after what happened to Russell’s car in Canada.
He explained on Sky Sports F1’s Paddock Uncut: “What would worry me if I were a Mercedes driver at the moment, or a McLaren driver, or a Williams driver or an Alpine driver is that they had a terminal failure of the battery.
“And they still don’t quite know why they had a terminal failure. It’s got to be shipped back to the UK, back to Brixworth, I would imagine, where they build the power units.
“And then they can have a look at it. So until they can have a look at it, they don’t know what went wrong necessarily with that battery. So you’re racing with a bit of fear.”
Bradley Lord warns it may take ‘several months’ before Mercedes understands Canadian GP
Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord has said the part needed to be sent back to the UK after going through some “unusual” safety protocols.
Lord explained on the Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show: “We got the car back. We were able to get the module out of it. It had to undergo some sort of pretty unusual safety procedures and then has to be shipped back to the UK.
“So, it will be several months before the hardware gets back, and we need to really dig through the data to understand exactly what went wrong and then how can we try to prevent a repeat on any other modules in the future.”
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