McLaren in talks over Mercedes Formula E team

Mercedes’ Formula E team, which is losing factory backing at the end of the current season, could become McLaren’s doorway into the series.

The previous Formula E campaign, the seventh since it was inaugurated, saw Mercedes-EQ capture their first titles, both the teams’ crown and the drivers’ via Nyck de Vries.

But season eight, which is only their fourth, will be the Silver Arrows’ last as a works team as they announced last August they intend to “keep pushing technological progress, especially on the electric drive side, focusing on Formula 1”.

McLaren, meanwhile, have been linked with expanding their horizons into Formula E for some time, joining their existing commitments in F1 and IndyCar as well as a potential World Endurance Championship entry.

Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing, said towards the end of last year that any decisions were likely to be announced in the first quarter of 2022.

Now The Race are reporting that as far as Formula E is concerned, that could entail forming a “potential independent ‘super team’” that would also enable the Mercedes name to remain on the grid, albeit in a different capacity to the current guise.

Talks are said to be ongoing, with an initial discussion reported to have taken place between Mercedes EQ team principal Ian James and McLaren boss Brown at the Formula E event in Saudi Arabia a year ago.

The Race say “James and other Mercedes EQ executives have again met with Brown to discuss a possible collaboration, and several paddock insiders told The Race last weekend in Riyadh that those talks were intensifying”.

There is currently no clarity on how that collaboration would take shape or how it would be titled, but the report states the cars would probably be powered by a Nissan