Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfhound
I think we can safely say at this stage that not much information left Mercedes via McLaren to Honda.
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I think given where they are performance and reliability wise that is an easy conclusion to reach. IMHO, it may or may not be true. I think that at a minimum Honda knew the performance envelope of last years Mercedes. This is because McLaren should understand the aero envelope of the car and given the data they have around speed, acceleration, drag (mechanical + aero) and fuel flow they could map out what the Mercedes is capable of. So that should have given Honda a target to shoot for.
Regardless of how much info they had, it seems that Honda decided to not create a Mercedes clone as the turbo design and layout is different. I can only assume they felt that if they went down the exact same path they would always lag behind in the development war, or they felt a different path opened some doors that might be closed to Mercedes, or maybe a combo of both. Here is an interesting article (a little old)...
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118626
Assuming that analysis is correct Honda did go down a different path. Question is if it is a dead end or they just need more development to get it where it needs to be? I think overall that Mercedes clearly has their act together and that even with an all new engine (Honda) or existing plus development tokens (Ferrari for example) that they are having a hard time making inroads.
Additionally, I think Mercedes still has most or all of their 2015 tokens remaining? I think I heard that Mercedes did release a new spec at Montreal but it was focused on reliability changes and not performance (token) changes? In addition to Ferrari using some tokens (which has helped them), I think Honda also did a combo of token improvements plus reliability changes (not that it helped!) for Montreal as well.
Richard