[Team] McLaren - can they compete?

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by wnut

I agree with what you say here in principle, BUT, I do feel that Honda are guilty of never having come to the dance.

I wonder if they thought that making the McLaren operation dependent on Honda and delivering a sub standard PU into the McLaren operation may have opened up the possibility of acquiring McLaren?

This Honda power unit has just been bad beyond belief, and has to have compromised the McLaren brand and its attractiveness to third parties.

Succeeded in getting rid of Ron for a whole bunch of reasons.

Zak Brown still does not seem to have brought new sponsorship on board.

Tin hat time?

Originally Posted by knighty

I have said it before and I'll say it again, McLaren are just as much to blame as Honda......it all went wrong when McLaren pushed Honda into the size-zero axial turbine route.....McLaren have confirmed time and time again they clearly do not grasp modern F1 powertrain requirements.

Exactly as knighty has said, it's not Honda delivering a bad unit on purpose at any time. According to a couple reports I've seen online, they had a design and McLaren apparently told them no thanks, start over it needs to fit in here. Never mind that EVERY other team used something similar to Honda's first design, McLaren knew better and honestly they desire the cowpie they are stuck with. There's no chance Renault will redesign everything to accommodate the design so McLaren better get with the modern program ASAP.

[RWill2073]

I'm not saying that theory is wrong, but if that's the case, as you mention, aren't they going to have problems with the Renault? If they desired a design different from the others, wouldn't that make moving go Renault a really bad decision? And then if that requires a chassis redesign, how much of their strong performance chassis wise goes away?

I still think they should have stuck with Honda amd remained a factory team.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

I'm not saying that theory is wrong, but if that's the case, as you mention, aren't they going to have problems with the Renault? If they desired a design different from the others, wouldn't that make moving go Renault a really bad decision? And then if that requires a chassis redesign, how much of their strong performance chassis wise goes away?

I still think they should have stuck with Honda amd remained a factory team.

I think they will, but Renault can say this is how everyone else needs and we only get one engine so here it is.

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

I think they will, but Renault can say this is how everyone else needs and we only get one engine so here it is.

So then what we'll have is this: An historic team with a world champion driver, who became a factory team. The team designed a fantastic chassis, maybe as good as any in the series, which was matched to the factory engine. The engine, trying to fit the superb chassis, had to be designed in a way that made it not work well. So the great team with a great chassis and great driver was stuck at the back of the grid. Then the team decides to sever ties with the factory engine deal and become a customer of a better performing engine. To do so, the team has to redesign the great chassis, and in doing so, the chassis becomes less impressive. So the team ends up with a mid-pack engine and a mid-pack chassis and a great driver that is still ****ed off at being near the back of the field. Weee....

[Graz]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I saw this posted and discussed elsewhere. I find this part more interesting than anything else...



So, the public criticism of the entire McLaren/Honda saga has so far been pretty much one sided. With fans, the media and McLaren heaping blame upon Honda. And... they deserve a great deal of blame. But it has been very one sided. Honda has so far both accepted most of that criticism but also talked up the partnership with McLaren. Generally McLaren has been painted as blameless other than the occasional comments about insisting upon a "size zero" solution.

Now that it is effectively over (even if they have to finish out the season together), it seems Honda is maybe a bit more willing to have their say. I have seen it written elsewhere that "maybe" what Honda is speaking to is that McLaren may have had a voice in which of the earlier engine concepts should move forward. And that the concept that was selected (speculation on my part) might have been selected due to it's low weight (maybe part of the size zero solution). And that maybe this was contrary to what Honda had wanted to do. That one of the other concepts may have shown more promise, but would have been a heavier solution or some other issue ended up making it less attractive to McLaren.

Or it might be that McLaren just didn't like whatever forward thinking that maybe Honda was pushing (which might be the solution they tried to use and it failed). As I say... lots of speculation.

Either way, I have no doubt there is MUCH more to the story than what we have heard up to this point. I suspect Honda may continue to be relatively tight lipped on whatever internal disagreement they may have had (or still have) with McLaren. Of course, who wouldn't want to know!

Richard

I don't think there is any more to it other than Honda's performance for 3 years was shambolic and McLaren have had enough. It's easy for Honda to come out fighting after the event - making a good engine would have been a better solution.

I read with interest again recently about McLaren's 'disastrous' partnership with Peugeot in 1994 - with 8 podiums...so what can this Honda debacle be described as?

RD was right to go with Honda at the time, it made sense on paper. But Honda were just plain awful with no signs of improvement after 3 years - a lifetime in F1. The engine was always down on power and unreliable. Always. The decision wasn't made just to keep Alonso happy either.

There really is nothing more to this story - Honda failed completely and that's the one and only reason. All trust and faith was gone from McLaren's side.

[S griffin]

What planet are Honda living on? McLaren did their best and have a good chassis this season, if anything it's Honda who have not adapted to change.

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I saw this posted and discussed elsewhere. I find this part more interesting than anything else...



So, the public criticism of the entire McLaren/Honda saga has so far been pretty much one sided. With fans, the media and McLaren heaping blame upon Honda. And... they deserve a great deal of blame. But it has been very one sided. Honda has so far both accepted most of that criticism but also talked up the partnership with McLaren. Generally McLaren has been painted as blameless other than the occasional comments about insisting upon a "size zero" solution.

Now that it is effectively over (even if they have to finish out the season together), it seems Honda is maybe a bit more willing to have their say. I have seen it written elsewhere that "maybe" what Honda is speaking to is that McLaren may have had a voice in which of the earlier engine concepts should move forward. And that the concept that was selected (speculation on my part) might have been selected due to it's low weight (maybe part of the size zero solution). And that maybe this was contrary to what Honda had wanted to do. That one of the other concepts may have shown more promise, but would have been a heavier solution or some other issue ended up making it less attractive to McLaren.

Or it might be that McLaren just didn't like whatever forward thinking that maybe Honda was pushing (which might be the solution they tried to use and it failed). As I say... lots of speculation.

Either way, I have no doubt there is MUCH more to the story than what we have heard up to this point. I suspect Honda may continue to be relatively tight lipped on whatever internal disagreement they may have had (or still have) with McLaren. Of course, who wouldn't want to know!

Richard

Apparently one problem is that the engine exhibited problems in the car but not on the Honda dyno, particularly severe vibration through the transmission.

Maybe this was a Honda problem, maybe it was not helped by installation issues. It was interesting to watch Craigh Scarborough's piece on engine installation and the fact that teams running the same engine are not installing them in the same way in the car.

Whatever, Honda and McLaren couldn't make it work, I can't believe that Honda didn't try their best but perhaps F1 has moved on so much since they left and they under estimated the task. Equally I am sure McLaren tried to make it work and it was a deep breath to walk away from a manufacturer free engine and millons of dollars in sponsorship from Honda, that is a big hole to fill but as Boulllier says, they are going nowhere finishing 9th in the WCC with Honda, so had to move on.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by S griffin

What planet are Honda living on? McLaren did their best and have a good chassis this season, if anything it's Honda who have not adapted to change.

Out of interest, how do we actually know McLaren aren't at fault as well?

How many Constructor Championships have they won in the last 25 years?

[Graz]

Originally Posted by peebee2

Out of interest, how do we actually know McLaren aren't at fault as well?

How many Constructor Championships have they won in the last 25 years?

Oh come on, the Honda is abysmal, there's no excuse. It has no power or reliability, never has had in 3 years. It's as bad now as 3 years ago. How is that in any way McLarens fault?

[bjohnsonsmith]

In that article, Masashi Yamamoto says McLaren F1 is a "systematic" company that finds it hard to adapt to change. I've also heard that 'accusation' leveled at Honda by Eric Boullier, who urged Honda to put its corporate culture to one side in a bid to fast-track efforts to improve its Formula 1 engine. This was back in 2015.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/m...culture-aside/

In March this year, Boullier also commented on Honda needing to embrace F1 culture.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/12...ture--boullier

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Graz

Oh come on, the Honda is abysmal, there's no excuse. It has no power or reliability, never has had in 3 years. It's as bad now as 3 years ago. How is that in any way McLarens fault?

My opinion is that this is not about taking blame away from Honda (they deserve blame). But trying to understand how McLaren factored into the eventual trainwreck.

My point on my earlier post is that this has been an entirely one sided story because Honda has refused until very recently to say ANYTHING negative about McLaren. But now that the partnership is off... Honda has ever so slightly changed tune. And given how many in this thread has been hyper focused on the impacts of geographic and/or corporate culture... you would think that ANY comment from Honda that lays some level of blame on McLaren is something worth talking about.

I think it is actually quite ridiculous to pretend that McLaren is completely faultless in the entire partnership. Nobody is perfect.

Richard

[TrapezeArtist]

I have a little bit of experience of working with Honda engineers (not in racing) so here is my take on things.

Honda engineering is very good, but not as good as Honda think it is.

Honda initial designs may not be all that great but they are good at development/fire-fighting.

This arrogant self-belief makes it hard or impossible for Honda to copy others or look for help from others.

Given the amount of time they have had, I would have expected Honda to have turned their sow's ear into something reasonably resembling a silk purse by now. The fact that they haven't makes me think that perhaps they simply don't know how to build a competitive engine to the current formula. And they won't recruit/poach someone who does.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

I have a little bit of experience of working with Honda engineers (not in racing) so here is my take on things.

Honda engineering is very good, but not as good as Honda think it is.

Honda initial designs may not be all that great but they are good at development/fire-fighting.

This arrogant self-belief makes it hard or impossible for Honda to copy others or look for help from others.

Given the amount of time they have had, I would have expected Honda to have turned their sow's ear into something reasonably resembling a silk purse by now. The fact that they haven't makes me think that perhaps they simply don't know how to build a competitive engine to the current formula. And they won't recruit/poach someone who does.

When you look at the situation at McLaren Honda through your prism everything is consistent with what is being reported by McLaren, it is also doubtful that McLaren managed to dictate much to Honda.

I reckon that McLaren were asked what they would like, specified the size zero engine wish and Honda picked up on the idea and became obsessed to the detriment of everything else.
What I find totally amazing is how they got the PU so completely wrong when they had at least external observations and McLaren feedback on the Mercedes unit.

It will be very interesting to see how well STR go next year!

[wnut]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

I'm not saying that theory is wrong, but if that's the case, as you mention, aren't they going to have problems with the Renault? If they desired a design different from the others, wouldn't that make moving go Renault a really bad decision? And then if that requires a chassis redesign, how much of their strong performance chassis wise goes away?

I still think they should have stuck with Honda amd remained a factory team.

Difficult questions!

If the rear wing and chassis drag is helped by the size zero concept, the chassis performance could go away with the alternative PU.

IMO, I agree, McLaren should absolutely have stayed with Honda. ( $160 million dollar hole in the budget aside, $80M sponsorship plus $80M engine budget. WOW!)

The good thing about Renault is that they seem to give everyone equal PU's, but they aint works Mercs that is for sure!

[GTRMagic]

Do we need to look to MotoGP to see how Honda operates...
Building good bikes, but hiring supergreat madmen to ride them to beyond their theoretical design capabilities.
And winning.

Ask Mr Doohan about the big bang engines nobody else in the series could ride effectively... done because it was Honda's solution and the pilots had to lump it... ride it or ride somewhere else...

Its a very odd way to operate..

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by wnut

When you look at the situation at McLaren Honda through your prism everything is consistent with what is being reported by McLaren, it is also doubtful that McLaren managed to dictate much to Honda.

I reckon that McLaren were asked what they would like, specified the size zero engine wish and Honda picked up on the idea and became obsessed to the detriment of everything else.
What I find totally amazing is how they got the PU so completely wrong when they had at least external observations and McLaren feedback on the Mercedes unit.

It will be very interesting to see how well STR go next year!

There are reports elsewhere on F1 forums (that I find credible) that for the 2017 engine McLaren was involved in the selection of which technical path to follow. This is based upon Honda having three single cylinder concepts that made it to the full v6 test engine phase. And that Honda, McLaren and an outside consultant(s) (I assume Gilles Simon) selected the concept to use for the final design. So it's probably not accurate to say Honda just handed a solution over to McLaren without McLaren being involved in selecting the solution.

However, clearly the decision would have been made using data provided by Honda and the consultant. And if that was faulty... and in hindsight it was not accurate given they eventually encountered issues with the concept, then that is probably the foundation of McLaren's complaints.

But we also don't know the details of how those discussions went. Was the solution selected the preferred solution from Honda? Did Honda even have a favorite? What was the balance of power on the selection process? I assume there were pros and cons listed for each potential solution. And supposedly the revised solution Honda is working on now (called by some early on as "spec 4") is based upon one of the other (initially unpicked) solutions. Or parts of that solution will make it into the current design. Unknown if this will show up before end of 2017 season.

Richard

[Moneyseeker]

At least in 2018 McLaren and Honda have the ultimate incentive to beat each other, to 'prove' that both were 'right'.

[S griffin]

And what about when they were running their own team a decade ago? They got nowhere, got Ross Brawn on board, got a great car developed for 2009, then pulled out and Ross rescued the team with a Merc engine. A big opportunity missed

[knighty]

Originally Posted by S griffin

And what about when they were running their own team a decade ago? They got nowhere, got Ross Brawn on board, got a great car developed for 2009, then pulled out and Ross rescued the team with a Merc engine. A big opportunity missed

I tell you what, Gilles Simon was working at the FIA and helped form the F1 turbo rules, I find it quite amusing that he couldnt make them work when on the other side of the fence.

I work in advanced powertrain design and development for a living, specifically around E-motors and electric superchargers......the F1 rules do not represent any form of road relevance whatsoever, the MGU-H is a joke, they will NEVER be released into a road car application, they are far too costly and have been proven time and time again not to work in urban driving conditions, for a truck, yes.....but for a passenger car - no.

I heard for 2021 the FIA are considering a simplified twin-turbo system, if so this is great news, I dare say it will release a lot more back-pressure and they will be a lot more louder too, so the fans will like them too.

I would like to think they also allow a motor-generator across the front axle too, or in-wheel motors on the front wheels, but I guess time will tell. This would genuinely be road relevant as all the OEM's are all developing small and compact motor-generator units to install across the un-driven rear axle. Combining the MGU-K with the rear axle just causes a mess with the rear brakes and traction.....stick it on the front axle I say.

[BSchneiderFan]

Are we really ready for the return of four-wheel drive in F1?

[wnut]

Zak Brown: McLaren F1 team open to compromise on special payment.

http://classic.autosport.com/news/re...ce=mostpopular

I think that their special payments are about to cease anyway due to non performance! ??

So hugely generous from Zak.

[knighty]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

Are we really ready for the return of four-wheel drive in F1?

its highly road relevant, and will simplify things a great deal for all teams

[Articus]

Seems as though Jenson Button still pledges allegiance to Honda after this divorce?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Articus

Seems as though Jenson Button still pledges allegiance to Honda after this divorce?

I assume this is in reference to Jenson potentially driving a prototype for Penske with Honda power? Why not? Why should he hold a grudge? Does he have much of a reason to hold a grudge? The issue is more between Honda and McLaren. I expect Jenson will exit his association with McLaren at the end of this season. It's probably already a done deal, but just not announced. I believe McLaren is already talking who might be reserve driver for 2018 and it is likely not Jenson. Jenson also has a long history with Honda that goes beyond the recent McLaren partnership.

Richard

[Articus]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I assume this is in reference to Jenson potentially driving a prototype for Penske with Honda power? Why not? Why should he hold a grudge? Does he have much of a reason to hold a grudge? The issue is more between Honda and McLaren. I expect Jenson will exit his association with McLaren at the end of this season. It's probably already a done deal, but just not announced. I believe McLaren is already talking who might be reserve driver for 2018 and it is likely not Jenson. Jenson also has a long history with Honda that goes beyond the recent McLaren partnership.



Richard

No reason to hold a grudge, just that I was just learning which side he has gone with. Makes sense that he is ending his official association with Mclaren as reserve driver to pursue avenues with Honda