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Honda did start early...i believe the deal was first announced almost a 2 years before its first race in 2015. by the time Mclaren saw what Merc's 2014 engine would look like, would it have already been too late for Honda to change their design?
but even if they could have learned more from Merc, they clearly underestimated the task that laid ahead and continued to underestimate it right up until the end of the partnership with Mclaren.
but issues of strategies, testing platforms etc aside do we actually know how much more lead time Merc and Renault had?
from what i recall both Merc and Renault were the main factors in why the current engine formula was chosen so, imo, it stands to reason that they pushed for this solution because they already had their starting point/early r&d already in hand (and in Merc's case an ingenious solution plus a mega ton of resources to boot).
indeed it is fair to say that Honda did many things wrong (as did Mclaren imo) but even if they had done everything right would they still not have been victims of being behind on time?
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