planetf1.com

That makes no sense in any way, but if you say so.

Mclaren's quali performance today was pretty normal for them. Does that indicate that the chassis is not much more competitive than the engine?

10th in Barcelona, 10th in Monaco. So the chassis didn't add nothing.

yep.

On a Wednesday.

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That's actually the chief designer that comes out with things like that because the data apparently shows him that, I can't see him daring to run that past the likes of Alonso though so we perhaps just look at the engine supplier even on a track like Monaco.

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Well obviously they said no because then we would get to see just how good the McLaren car is.

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The power of dreams.

Make no mistake, the engine is most certainly to blame here. I am just sick of being told how McLaren chassis is some work of art, when it's not. I am just having fun because of the constant "this race will be our race" BS.

Literally the best that anyone has claimed, including McLaren, is that their chassis is 4th best; Boullier was perhaps wrong about Ferrari, but he said Mercedes, Red Bull and Toro Rosso would be ahead of them anyway. Some people might be exaggerating how good the Macca chassis is, but you're certainly exaggerating what they're actually saying. It's a long stretch from '4th best' to 'work of art'.

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TBH the best McHonda can do is to beat STR, FI this year. Williams still have problem on high downforce track but I still expect them to do better and finish ahead of this pack. They are getting more or less same performance in fast or slow tracks which should finally debunk that the car is not strong in any particular area

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Just thought I'd bump this up. At least now people don't except Mecca to turn a corner any day now.

Alonso's car turns left pretty well.

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given that Honda runs it's engine program all by itself, it all depends on them.

I think Mclaren builds a decent enough car so that Fernando could fight for a win or two. But it all depends what happens with the new engine.

Still, the major problem is that RON isn't running the operations any more. I keep saying this to everyone I know, F1 is not like a normal business. It works purely on intrinsic performance. In business intrinsic performance is less important than perception.

In general, if you have a perception of a premium product or service, most users will see it as premium, therefore buy it. In F1, if the perception is you have a very fast car, and you don't, you will end up at the back. That's why people like Zak Brown, altough good, will never be able to run an operation like Ron did. I am not saying Ron is a god, but the decades of experience do count for something.

Ron was there for '15 and '16, he just stepped down in November last year. It's been one race without Ron. The problem always was and still is the engine

This. The Honda engine is a massive problem. This cannot be stated strongly enough. The engine is so bad that McLaren is already working behind the scenes to look for an alternative if it turns out that Honda simply cannot fix their mess. Alonso stated after the first race that, in his opinion, the McLaren is the slowest car on the grid. The Honda engine is turned so far down, to keep it from blowing up, that they are dead last.

The situation with Honda is abysmal. It is dire. And it is trending down, not up.

It is incredibly sad that Alonso has hitched his ride to this dog of an engine.

Ron Dennis was a clown.

McLaren losing Adrian Newey is down to him
McLaren losing Fernando Alonso in 2007 is down to him
McLaren losing their effective works Mercedes status is down to him
McLaren entering their 4th season without a title sponsor is down to him
McLaren being saddled with Honda's excuses for engines is down to him

They've won the same number of Constructors Championships in the last 25 years as Brawn GP. It amazes me that people still speak of him as some sort of demi god when he's been by and large a failure over the last quarter of a century.

I think McLaren losing Alonso was down to Alonso whilst Whitmarsh was at the helm when they lost works Mercedes status.

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I can understand your point. But you also have to understand the following :

1. Creating a Nasa type infrastructure was down to him
2. Creating a supercar brand with 10.000 SUPERCARS sold was down to him.
3. Building applied technologies to sustain funding for the team was down to him.
4. Almoust 4k high tech jobs are down to his vision.

You see, this business is more than drivers and WDC's . This guy started from scratch. The others are employees of someone playing with someone elses resources.

To call Ron Dennis a clown is absurd. He's been a massively successful business man.

Fully agree. Ron has built McLaren into the massive empire it is today. It's easy to forget that until as recently as 2012 McLaren was considered by many as on a par with Ferrari in terms of their presence in the sport.

I've always had a soft spot for Ron and it's hard not to admire what he's accomplished. Having said that, if it's true that his inflexibility and intransigence has been the main reason why McLaren have recently been losing sponsors and other relationships the way they have, then I have to reluctantly concede that perhaps it was the right time for him to step down

Maybe the company is now more interested in selling road cars than being successful in F1, thats certainly where the money is (not the money pit F1 has become)

Well said. Ron Dennis is a towering giant in Formula One. It's a real shame that his career ended the way it did. He's not perfect, but still deserves a lot of respect.

Mclaren have been in a very bad way since 2013 (arguably 2009). They are ultimately to blame for this Honda disaster, for allowing Honda to make so many mistakes and failing to manage the whole project properly. They've basically allowed Honda to fail and are only now trying to do something about it. But unfortunately they've given Honda too much control by taking so much funding from them. I believed since 2012, that Mclaren seemed happy to fail. All the mistakes that were made in that season seemed to stem from a team that refused to accept that things needed to change. And they've done the exact same thing so far in this Honda era.

guess, like ferrari, when they're building great road cars their F1 cars are dogs and vice versa

I don't see how they are ultimately to blame for the Honda disaster. Honda are to blame for the Honda disaster.

Didn't realize this thread is 2 years old. So little has changed with the mclaren situation. There seemed to be good progress last year but this year they have taken a giant step back again. Very bad sign.
The best thing for them to do at this point imo is get rid of honda and trial Mercedes power. Let Honda power those measly sauber cars. Enough is enough.

As this is an old thread perhaps this exclusive interview with a McLaren Honda executive [F1 2017] may help out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBPN1zYm-K8

I'm in agreement with those above that McLaren is in trouble and I'd like to feel sorry for Fernando as I like him as a driver, but at 40 million a year I'm betting he'll tough it out for the rest of 2017.

The problem with just “switching to mercedes” is that McLaren probably believes that there is NO way that McLaren will ever get the equal works engine that the factory team gets. I tend to agree, there is no way Merc would allow that, and I am sure there are a lot of games that are played to assure the factory cars get the best spec. That being said, they have to find another route, and this is how Honda enters the equation. As a McLaren and Alonso fan, I am at least glad that they know the fault of the engine and can now work on correcting it and getting it at full power instead of just being cluless about what is wrong (but this is sure is a frustrating situation).

2017 is gone. 2018 is gone. And Alonso will mostly (90% sure) be leaving at the end of this season.

There is no way to come back to a respectable position in next 2 years for McLaren.
I know lot of people were quick to criticize me back in 2014 when Alonso announced he is leaving Ferrari to Join McLaren that it is biggest mistake of his life and joining McLaren is even bigger mistake.
I had lost all hopes with McLaren before that.

I dont see their fortunes changing quickly. And by quickly, I mean in next 2 years.
They have a serious problem and it is not just the engine. They need to fire their entire technical team and bring in new people fast. This is incompetent team assembled by 2 out of touch, delusional people even though both are not part of McLaren F1 team anymore. Its still same people.

These are harsh words, I am not a McLaren fan. I am not a Alonso fan, in fact I would like nothing better than to see McLaren getting beaten by my team Ferrari. But not like this. This is just painful to watch and disgrace to McLaren legacy.

Fans deserve better. Alonso deserves better. The Sport deserves better than this disreputable McLaren car.

I believe it is possible to win with a customer engine. It has been done in the past. Redbull has won 4 championships doing it, they are currently outclassing the Works Renault team, Mclaren used to outclass Mercedes when they were using their engine in the previous era. This idea that you can't win with a customer engine is bogus and really came from Ron Dennis. He was wrong. Paddy Lowe has also said it recently that winning with a customer is possible. It really boils down to the car, if the car is good enough, you can win with a customer engine. No question about it.

I think there is a question. Paddy Lowe's not the best example. He can hardly say Williams have no hope, can he? As for Red Bull, Renault are in no position to challenge at the moment because basically their chassis isn't great. But if they do end up fighting with Red Bull for points, how much longer will Red Bull get parity of equipment do you think?

Williams admitted last year (or was it 2015?) that they didn't have access to the higher engine modes Mercedes did. I think there's reason to believe Ron

Not true.

Renault sold their team before 2010 effectively. From that point Red Bull were the works team. It's almost impossible to have the budget to win without a works engine deal unless you are generating a lot of income from elsewhere. A team like Red Bull could do it but haven't yet.

It annoys me how people think that switching to Merc will solve their problems. They were with Mercedes in 2013-14 and were already stuck in the mid-field, scrambling around for the single digit points, on a good day.

The problem isn't solely the engine, its the entire package. They may be able to kid their fans the car is fundamentally good, just underpowered... But the reality is, this phase of poor performance pre-dates Honda, and removing them won't necessarily fix the problem, if anything it'll just bring new ones.


I'm not even convinced Alonso will see the season out... JB better not have any holidays booked.

You're right, the problem isn't just Honda, its the entire team. They've been stuck in this rut for 5 years now. Time for some major shake ups.

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I am not sure if you guys saw this, but it is interesting. Posted by a top Honda engineer on F1technical.


Well, Friday was officially my last day at HRD. I decided to leave and go back to retirement for many personal reasons. This has nothing to do with my feelings towards Honda. They have been extremely good to me and some of my most enjoyable times in the 40 plus years in the automotive industry have been at Honda Motors. This will be my last post in this forum. I will visit from time to time and for those of you who have my personal email, please feel free to contact me there. I think it’s time to move on and focus on my personal projects that I have neglected in the recent years. Some of you may be wondering why someone like me would be posting here. Well this forum has been a diversion, entertainment and therapy for me. I have had some very difficult mental struggles over the past 18 months and this forum has been a tremendous escape and relief for me though some difficult times. Thank you for many of your kind words and thank you to the haters as you too have given me many a laugh. Being called spineless, clueless, a fraud, idiot, uneducated, etc., has brought me a lot more smiles than anger. If you don’t have thick skin then you don’t belong in F1.

Here’s a recap of my experiences including material based on documents, meetings and conversations with fellow HRD personnel including my nephew.
I was quite surprised when my nephew told me during New Year’s 2013 that Honda was going back into F1. It takes numerous resources and lots of money. I couldn’t understand why Honda would spend hundreds of millions of dollars for this but yet part of me was excited. I figured Honda would enter in the 2017 season based on the new formula proposed for 2015 and the amount of time it takes for R and D to produce a “new concept” PU. And then later when I heard that they were going to supply McLaren starting in 2015 I was quite shocked. There is word 無理 which I think is a very difficult word to translate correctly but it seems Honda forget the meaning and concept of that word. To put together a PU of this complexity in 20 months when others had 48 to 60 months to develop this formula PU seemed like a daunting task. Furthermore with this new token system and PU number restriction, well this was not going to be good no matter how you looked at it.

Then I learned that McLaren had set parameters for an overall packaging requirement. In the past it’s always been my experience in F1, you built the engine and then the bodywork around it. Apparently this time it was going to be the other way around. I blame Honda 100% for accepting this methodology. There were four proposed layouts I discovered for the new PU. Two were based on turbine and compressor both at rear and two with a turbine and compressor on top and in the “V”. Only one fit the proposed requirements and apparently there was no negotiating at this point. Many things were said about how there was no “Size zero” requirement and Honda took it upon themselves to make the packaging as small as possible. Well it really wasn’t quite that simple. For 2016, it’s easy to say that the requirement is no longer needed when wholesale changes can’t be made between 2015 and 2016 because of the token system. But again, I blame Honda 100% for agreeing to this concept knowing that success was going to be impossible in that short a timeframe and with a much compromised layout design. 2016 was trying to make the best of a compromised situation from the start. Hard to win the Kentucky Derby with a 3 legged horse.

I started working with a team dedicated to the 2017 PU back in the spring of last year. I had hopes that some of the concepts could be introduced in 2016 but that did not happen. Lack of time for development and testing made it impossible for an upgrade that I was hoping could be introduced in Malaysia. So it was tabled for 2017. We knew that the previous layout was not a winning combination and as time went on there was no way it ever could be. A major layout change was needed and both Honda and McLaren moved forward making wholesale changes. This in my opinion should have been the PU introduced in 2015. So in essence in my opinion, another 18 months behind. So in that aspect I am extremely proud of what Honda has accomplished in that short amount of time. On the dyno this year’s PU has shown very impressive numbers; better than I ever expected. Reliability is a big issue with so many new, “untested” components. At the end of day, I believe the new PU is a diamond in the rough. New combustion process, completely new layout including block, pistons, crankshaft, rods, pistons, new ERS, new MGU-H etc. It’s all new. There’s going to be a lot of teething pains but in my opinion the only way to beat Mercedes. Obviously they are the benchmark and so far Ferrari, Renault and Honda all have failed in their PU’s compared to them. Honda with the biggest amount of “catching up” to do. How much time will it take? I think realistically 4 to 6 months to resolve the reliability issues. Including one major one that I have mentioned to some of you after the first week of testing, the cylinder head. The PU is a highly stressed component of the chassis and I believe the method of components being attached to the upper portion of the engine including the heads needs to be readdressed.

Honda has made a accomplishment given the timeframe. So that is my take. I am so very proud of HRD no matter what anyone may say. We are not clueless nor a bunch of idiots. Flawed yes, stubborn yes, competitive yes, with a very strong with to win. Honda is not doing this for fun or as a research exercise, they’re in it to win it. That I know for sure. Will they? Time will tell….. The relationship between McLaren and Honda can vastly be improved in my opinion. Kaeru-san needs to go. My dream…..a WCC for Williams Honda in 2019.

Mitsuru

How do you know this? How can anyone possibly know with any degree of certainty how good or bad McLaren have been? They could be absolutely terrible, of course, but how can anyone know?

The PU's a turkey. Even Honda admit this. So what in your opinion are McLaren supposed to have done to improve things?

All that proves is that they could get it wrong too. In 2012 they created a car that was every bit as fast as the RBR. The 2011 wasn't exactly a stinker either.
If you're going to use history in order to make a point, then the only point is that it is FAR more likely that in the past three years they could have created a top car, than that they would have continued like in 2013. Because in the 20-something seasons before 2013, they rarely were to be found outside of the top 3 in the WCC. They had a brief stint of fourth places between 1994 and 1997, and in 2004 they were fifth. All the other years they placed top 3.



It won't necessarily fix the problem: incorrect. It will fix the PU problem and give them at least a chance to compete.
Will it guarantee them a top spot again? No. Nobody is guaranteed that, however, talking about likelihood: see above.

Lastly: the problem is the entire package: there is no way to know that and you can't say that with any degree of certainty. The only thing we know is that the PU is a POS.

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Paddy has been consistent in his stance regarding the engines since last year. If there was no "parity" with the customer and works engines he would say it. The fia dictates that the engines have to be equal. The works teams are not allowed to provide lesser engines to their customers. If williams doesnt have access to engine modes it is likely their fault.

What exactly do you think is not true? That redbull has won using customer engines? That mclaren has beaten the mercedes works teams while using mercedes engines? Those look like facts to me.
Redbull was never a works team. Lotus and williams were getting the exact same engines from renault. Redbull were simply customers.

To be fair, just studying mclarens performance compared to the even less powerful toro rosso car last year shows mclarens problems werent just engine related. They failed to reach many of their targets last year, even when the power unit was getting better.

This year, yeah...We dont know yet.