[Team] McLaren - can they compete?

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

There is a bit of history with Mercedes assisting their rival manufacturers since the hybrid V6 introduction. Mercedes assisted Renault to built a better engine after their disastrous 2014 campaign. This deal was helped because of the Renault-Nissan-Daimler partnership, which was formed in 2010, for their joint road car division.

Mercedes also (apparently) assisted Ferrari in 2015, to which an agreement in principle was rumoured to have been made between Niki Lauda, Sergio Marchionne and Bernie Ecclestone. Apparently for the good of the sport. This deal is something that was not spoken of much, but paddock insiders believe it did indeed happen. Proof of which is now apparent with Ferraris 2017 engine being on par with the Mercedes.

And now the paddock talk is that Honda and Mercedes have just recently begun working together to improve the Honda engine. With an improvement in engine performance expected after the summer break in August. This is probably where the rumours of McLaren seeking out Mercedes engines started a few weeks back.

This is all very interesting, but (and please don't take offence) it also seems a bit far-fetched to me.
I am sure that you have reliable sources but I can't see why (unless there are huge amounts of money involved) why Mercedes would want to help a competitor such as Ferrari or Honda although I can understand the Renault thing due to the quoted & already arranged technical alliance between the two companies regarding road cars.
The rumour I find more believable is that Mario Ilien is personally helping Honda (again, involving huge sums of money) but I didn't think that he was involved with AMG Performance Engines (or whatever it's called) who are responsible for the MB powerplants, the company that was originally Ilmor...

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

And now the paddock talk is that Honda and Mercedes have just recently begun working together to improve the Honda engine. With an improvement in engine performance expected after the summer break in August. This is probably where the rumours of McLaren seeking out Mercedes engines started a few weeks back.

This was discussed by a Sky person with Eric B during an interview this afternoon after FP1 coverage, and certainly sounds as if it's happening.....

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

The rumour I find more believable is that Mario Ilien is personally helping Honda (again, involving huge sums of money) but I didn't think that he was involved with AMG Performance Engines (or whatever it's called) who are responsible for the MB powerplants, the company that was originally Ilmor...

And Ilien has retained the special projects side of Ilmor with Penske, and they have assisted with multiple engines including their inhouse projects. To say AMG Performance was called Ilmor is partially correct, in CURRENT references as in since 05 to Ilmor Engineering is that consulting special projects side of the company which was formed after MB took the Ilmor name off their purchase and returned it to Ilien and Penske.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

This was discussed by a Sky person with Eric B during an interview this afternoon after FP1 coverage, and certainly sounds as if it's happening.....

😲

[chillibowl]

McLaren can't explain "best day" of 2017

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/m...f-2017-895912/

obviously happy for them but have to admit the headline made me chuckle!

[S griffin]

Let's hope they find out soon. Nothing worse than suddenly you're going better and don't know why

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

And Ilien has retained the special projects side of Ilmor with Penske, and they have assisted with multiple engines including their inhouse projects. To say AMG Performance was called Ilmor is partially correct, in CURRENT references as in since 05 to Ilmor Engineering is that consulting special projects side of the company which was formed after MB took the Ilmor name off their purchase and returned it to Ilien and Penske.

As I understand it, having manufactured engines during the '90s in the CART era, which were badged as Mercedes-Benz, Ilmor Engineering Ltd., entered a partnership with Mercedes to develop engines for both Sauber and McLaren. After the untimely death of Paul Morgan, co-founder of Ilmor in 2001, Mercedes increased its stake until it owned the entire company and renamed it Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines Ltd.

In 2005, Mario Illien in partnership with Roger Penske, finalised a deal to purchase from Mercedes, the Special Projects part of the company which was under contract with Honda Performance Development, to jointly develop the Honda V8 used by the IRL. This new company, was once again known as Ilmor Engineering Ltd. and is totally independent of Mercedes.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Let's hope they find out soon. Nothing worse than suddenly you're going better and don't know why

I read that article (plus the official statement from McLaren on their site) and I think it is more the reverse... It's not that they don't know why it works, but rather why it was failing earlier. Why they have had a string of MGU-H failures may not be fully understood. It seems to be bearing/heat related. So why did it fail earlier and then now they have a problem free day in which they run a race distance? Even then, it is a slight bit ingenuous as I think Honda made some adjustments in Bahrain to see if it would help the MGU-H issue (no idea what they could do onsight) and maybe that helped on the last day.

As I mentioned in the Bahrain testing thread, on the Honda side, they seem to be working on engine mapping. They likely have been quite conservative up to now in attempt to get reliability. Given they are producing faster lap times (fourth fastest today) and managed to do a full race distance at the same time, they seem to be making some progress.

Also... my opinion is that we likely will NOT see any drastic improvements until they release an updated engine (physical changes and not mapping changes). There is plenty of speculation as to when that will be. But I am guessing the Spanish or Monaco GP at the earliest. And this is assuming that they really understand what the problem AND solution is and that whatever they are working on now back at HRD Sakura will have a positive impact.

Richard

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

As I've just read elsewhere 2016 was a rubbish year for retiring. Is it time to re-launch the Webber to Renault thread?

Yes... with Fernando Alonso as his teammate!!

[bjohnsonsmith]

McLaren are to get a reliability update for the Russian GP. I hope it works.

http://classic.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/129143

[chillibowl]

so the F1 Strategy Group will apparently be looking at ways to try and bring the Honda engine closer to parity with the other engine manus.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...-honda-897438/

definitely arguments for and against this sort of help so not sure where i would fall on this debate.

[JHamilton]

Maybe something crazy like allowing testing with the actual engine in the actual chassis would work? I know it would increase team budgets from $250 million to $251 million but I think it might just help.

[BSchneiderFan]

Autosport reporting that a Sauber-Honda deal for 2018 is imminent.

[Richard C]

In some ways, I think it's too early to try to consider concessions for Honda as I think even if you gave them some type of allowances, they are probably moving as fast as they can. Then again decisions on stuff like this can take time.

I am a big Honda fan, but I would not support anything that directly gives them a performance boost on track. Such as a different fuel allocation, etc. anything that allows them to run a different "spec" than everyone else. Not that I think the other teams, should or would buy into that approach.

As mentioned above, maybe some testing allowances?

Richard

[F1Guy]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

so the F1 Strategy Group will apparently be looking at ways to try and bring the Honda engine closer to parity with the other engine manus.

Might this have something to do with what I posted in post #346?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

Might this have something to do with what I posted in post #346?

I am not a betting man, but I would almost put money on that being wrong. At the moment I am beyond skeptical of Mercedes transferring knowledge to Honda for any number of reasons.

Richard

[old man]

Whatever happens next in this whole Honda saga the company is getting vast coverage in the sport's media, 5 out of 8 banners on the Autosport web edition were about Honda just now.

[F1Guy]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I am not a betting man, but I would almost put money on that being wrong.

Sorry. Unfortunately, I don't make bet's for small change.

[S griffin]

Mercedes transferring help to Honda? Has someone gone crazy or something? Unless they are doing a joint alliance, I can't see it happening

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Mercedes transferring help to Honda? Has someone gone crazy or something? Unless they are doing a joint alliance, I can't see it happening

Why would they want to help a rival manufacturer, so F1 can actually have some racing?

[GT6]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Why would they want to help a rival manufacturer, so F1 can actually have some racing?

Well the boys in red are pretty close at the moment and the red bull team not far behind them, so for the first time in year there is actual racing, so why would mercs help honda

[ASCII Man]

Why not get to know exactly what your competitor is doing by providing the answers for them?

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Why would they want to help a rival manufacturer, so F1 can actually have some racing?

agreed. yes Ferrari are back in it and RB and now Renault look to be improving but to add to your point, i think the greater the overall competition the better off all the manus will find themselves.

self interest really...the healthier the sport the more they can get from their boards/ the easier it is to justify their huge budgets.

and if more manus can be brought into a more competitive F1 the more people will watch and the more advertising/branding value they will get.

Originally Posted by ASCII Man

Why not get to know exactly what your competitor is doing by providing the answers for them?

good point.

again self interest as they wont be offering to help for free. the manu which helps Honda Mclaren will no doubt extract a very healthy payment (and some favourable press) in the process.

maybe im being overly naive here, but the new owners seem to be bringing in a new culture which seems to involve more cooperation among the teams and manus. its not BE's divide and conquer F1 anymore.

another point, and just more speculating on my part, but if ICE related technologies are not the future, how much are they really vested in protecting their research?

rather if this tech will never hit their road cars, selling their tech/expertise to a rival manus/teams/new entrants may be their last best chance to sell it to anyone.

[P38 in workshop]

I see only negatives if Honda is in receipt of a competitors help.For one thing it is a public acknowledgement of employing a team of engine developers who are not much good compared to the opposition.It also gives said rival the opportunity to market themselves as being so good that Honda had to come to them for help.Which company comes out of this situation looking best?

Is there an independent specialist with the level of expertise to help the project?We have had stories of Mario Ilien being used as an external consultant with the current generation of engines.Could there be other options too?Two or three current engines given to a discreet consultancy with a blank cheque might be a less conspicuous way to make progress and obviously they ought to maintain a parallel company programme?

I wouldn't expect McLaren to have any quibble with the need to modify the packaging of the car if performance follows on.They certainly need to do something to add to the trophy collection if they are to avoid the fate of other formerly great teams like Cooper,BRM,Brabham,Alfa Romeo,Lotus and Tyrrell.

[Mike Bell]

Autosport- http://www.autosport.com/news/report...8400e-36366415

Note the headline says Merc 'could' assist, so still speculation- probably! Some interesting snippets of info, though.....