McLaren Mangement Merrygo round...

[Henry Fiddleton]

Honda will not be the savour of Mclaren.

If they cant do it with this years Merc power plant; then even with, (and not guranteed), a good Honda block, they will suffer on the area side as they are now unless it is addressed.

I don't know what is missing behind the scenes, I just hope Ron and the team are on it.

As a lead British brand/team, Britain needs them to deliver. Guess its the same for Ferrari and Italy.

[CraigyMc]

Henry Fiddleton said:

Honda will not be the savour of Mclaren.

Depends how much dough Honda plow into McLaren. It's not just engines.

[Vaud]

Henry Fiddleton said:

As a lead British brand/team, Britain needs them to deliver. Guess its the same for Ferrari and Italy.

Are McLaren perceived as a British brand? Given how much F1 tech/people/facilities there are in Britain, I see much of the grid as British teams

[CraigyMc]

Vaud said:

Henry Fiddleton said:

As a lead British brand/team, Britain needs them to deliver. Guess its the same for Ferrari and Italy.

Are McLaren perceived as a British brand? Given how much F1 tech/people/facilities there are in Britain, I see much of the grid as British teams

All but Ferrari, sauber and str, although str themselves have a fair bit more rb technology stuff in their car this year..

[belleair302]

Vaud said:

Are McLaren perceived as a British brand? Given how much F1 tech/people/facilities there are in Britain, I see much of the grid as British teams

Pretty well every team in F1, a number in Aussie V8's and a fair few in Indycar have a high number of British men and women at every level from tyre fitters through to chief engineers, aero and design people along with management, marketing and IT support. I forget how many within Ferrari are British but well over 15 of their top people and this will grow over this season as they try to improve their processes and design to manufacture issues.

[entropy]

Crafty_ said:

I don't think Lewis is motivated by money - IIRC McLaren ended up offering him more than he signed for at Merc.

Prodromou is still slated to join McLaren, although it doesn't look like Fallows will.

I think the biggest issue at McLaren on the engineering side is that their working practices/plans/methods aren't working - over the past few years they've started off with a car behind the curve and have been unable to move it forwards significantly. The only time this hasn't happened was 2012, when they started with a half decent car but quickly fell behind everyone else.
This year they promised an upgrade worth half a second - they slipped back against their rivals instead of moving forwards... how did that happen ?
Right now they are the third best Mercedes team.

They have a tendency to make big changes year to year so keep starting from scratch - most other teams have a degree of iteration between years. E.g. L shaped sidepods, their funky aero driveshafts and so on, seems the ideas never stay around long enough to be perfected.

Look at Merc - they spent 4 years building up their tech group and whilst everyone took the piss for them having Bell, Costa, Brawn and Willis I reckon that they've been setting in place working practices and methods of working so that the entire engineering team work cohesively and can properly quantify their work.. Job is done (for now), Brawn tiddled off and Bell is on his way too.

I think this is what McLaren need to do - and probably are, they've been recruiting quite a bit recently. I think that the pressure is on a bit as Honda will expect results within the next two years..

Money was a contentious issue. Ron said that what Lewis wanted in remuneration was not in keeping with the times but McLaren tried a last minute tactic of offering big money but by then Lauda had swayed Hamilton.

Last year Gary Anderson said that McLaren technical side is more like a committee which is why they have problems with their cars whereas if you look at RBR Newey's ethos is seeped into designing and developing the cars.

tvrforever said:

Oh dear - things must be very desperate in Woking

Big, global brand competing with the Koreans, etc. They're hardly Ling Long Tyres, are they?

[Vaud]

entropy said:

Big, global brand competing with the Koreans, etc. They're hardly Ling Long Tyres, are they?

Quite. £22bn revenue last year, and about 13% profit. Sounds like a good partner.

[Silent1]

Vaud said:

entropy said:

Big, global brand competing with the Koreans, etc. They're hardly Ling Long Tyres, are they?

Quite. £22bn revenue last year, and about 13% profit. Sounds like a good partner.

Mostly owned and run by the PLA and not averse to helping/being helped by China's spying activities.

[Vaud]

Silent1 said:

Mostly owned and run by the PLA and not averse to helping/being helped by China's spying activities.

Well its a global sport.

As an aside... Qinetiq used to sponsor Williams and they do all sorts for Western govs - tools and methods.

[revrange]

CraigyMc said:

Depends how much dough Honda plow into McLaren. It's not just engines.

Rumours Honda have already paid a large advance, hence mclaren could boast this years budget (the one that pays for next years car to be designed) was the largest they have ever had, even with losing Vodafone.

[revrange]

Vaud said:

Quite. £22bn revenue last year, and about 13% profit. Sounds like a good partner.

Would think part of the problem would be one is a chinese company i believe and one a Japanese?

[revrange]

Good to see Bouiller finally fallen for the Mclaren we must go radical approach when not winning!

Clearly a lot of problems down there at the moment.

[rubystone]

CraigyMc said:

I'm aware of them from a commercial relationship point of view (I work in IT, I've come across them in a fair number of comms contracts as a supplier). If they have an image problem, perhaps that plays into McLarens hand a little (spend some money on it).

I think their main issue is a total lack of brand recognition outside of people who know all the players. As for the "way of doing business", in recent years pretty much all the vendors have had various issues, even traditionally decent folk like Cisco and AlcatelLucent. I've not done enough with Huawei recently to know if they are significantly different.

Correct. But boy are they smart, very very smart. They are innovators and hire very well indeed. Clever move to boost brand.

[rubystone]

Gaz. said:

Honda are ploughing $100m iirc, but this includes half the pay of the drivers. There is no information that this is a simple 50/50 spilt or if Mclaren pay for one driver of their choice and Honda pay for the other driver of their choice...

Is that per annum? Note also that McLaren will not agree to Honda choosing a driver.

[hairyben]

CraigyMc said:

Depends how much dough Honda plow into McLaren. It's not just engines.

As with the engine point, financing isn't one of mclarens foremost problems.

[CraigyMc]

hairyben said:

CraigyMc said:

Depends how much dough Honda plow into McLaren. It's not just engines.

As with the engine point, financing isn't one of mclarens foremost problems.

They have been on a hiring spree of late. There is a thread on f1technical.net about it all. Mostly aero guys with a lot of experience in f1. Prodromou from rbr is the main big name, but there are lots of others.