I'm going to take offense on this
This has become one of the biggest on-going myths in F1 history - that the Peugeot V10's were garbage and that McLaren was somehow reduced as a contender.
Yes the engines certainly did explode, however McLaren scored 8 podiums between Brundle and Hakkinen over the course of 1994.
The switch to
MercedesIlmor power (because they were just Ilmor engines with Merc valve covers) was horrendous for results. They had 2 podiums for the whole year. Ron's been disingenuous about the whole McLaren-Peugeot thing for the last twenty years and somehow the media along with the fans still buy the idea that there was no success to be had with the Peugeot V10's. I'd wager any amount of money that had Merc not come calling with a large bag of Deutsche Marks that trumped the large bag of Francs, McLaren would have been running the Peugeot engines for 1995, and would have scored a win. Instead they suffered through many more Mercedes engine explosions for the next decade.
Now set to be repeated with Honda.