Honda engine

[DHB07]

I've yet to do any proper research on this, as I'm sat on my lunchbreak and don't have the time, so figured I'd ask the PH F1 knowledge centre.

With the news just broken about Merc's cleverly positioned engine/turbo setup. does this leave Honda with enough time to get down to the drawing board and copy the design to an extent? I imagine at this point they're fairly far in to their R+D, but is there time to change things?

Obviously, if they're a long way in to the production then Honda are probably in the same situation as everybody else on the grid - presumably going back to the drawing board for next year's egnine. But if not then surely this gives Honda a massive advantage (at least financially) in that they've yet ot spend too much time and R+D going off in a different direction, only for the original version to be scrapped...

Thoughts on how Honda will arrive in 2015? And for that matter the other engine manufacturers?

[10 Pence Short]

Don't you think Mercedes engine customer McLaren already had a good idea how Merc approached the engine design?

Remind me, who is partnering with Honda next year?

[PhillipM]

I would imagine they'd had enough time anyway, there was plenty of discussion over whether it was feasible last year on here before they engines were even revealed, so I imagine every team considered it.

[DHB07]

10 Pence Short said:

Don't you think Mercedes engine customer McLaren already had a good idea how Merc approached the engine design?

Remind me, who is partnering with Honda next year?

Firstly, I'm not sure, hence asking the question.

Secondly, as per the bit in bold, again I'm not sure at what stage Merc released this info to their customers? Obviously it was a long way behind when they released the info to the works team, or at least the info released to customers was limited as Merc have managed to create a much better package around the engine than the customers. Again, it's something I'm not sure on and hence asked the question.

10 Pence, do you have any idea on my questions or are you in the business of answering with questions?

(Queue "I don't know, am I?")

[DHB07]

PhillipM said:

I would imagine they'd had enough time anyway, there was plenty of discussion over whether it was feasible last year on here before they engines were even revealed, so I imagine every team considered it.

Which begs the question of why it was only persued by Merc...

[thegreenhell]

DHB07 said:

10 Pence Short said:

Don't you think Mercedes engine customer McLaren already had a good idea how Merc approached the engine design?

Remind me, who is partnering with Honda next year?

Firstly, I'm not sure, hence asking the question.

Secondly, as per the bit in bold, again I'm not sure at what stage Merc released this info to their customers? Obviously it was a long way behind when they released the info to the works team, or at least the info released to customers was limited as Merc have managed to create a much better package around the engine than the customers. Again, it's something I'm not sure on and hence asked the question.

McLaren and the other customer teams would have had this information fairly early on, I would imagine, if not explicitly then by inference from the data given to them to enable them to design their chassis and package things like intercoolers and the airbox, which would differ significantly between having the compressor mounted on the front or the rear of the engine.

They would of course have been subject to NDA on this information, so could not have told any third party, such as their future engine partner... Honda could of course legitimately claim to have thought of it for themselves, which indeed they may already have done, if it is as beneficial as claimed. Anyway, now this information has been in the public domain for a while, I wouldn't be surprised to see more engines with this configuration next season.

[Dunit]

Out of interest could MB have a patent for the design?

[anonymous-user]

10 Pence Short said:

Don't you think Mercedes engine customer McLaren already had a good idea how Merc approached the engine design?

Remind me, who is partnering with Honda next year?

Come on, do you think McLaren would get away with telling Honda about the Mercedes turbo? They'd be sued for millions of euros/dollars/pounds.

[AlexS]

PW said:

Is it worth copying? The other Mercedes teams have the same engine design, but aren't massively fast.

Mercedes' advantage seems to be that they have had a lot longer to develop and refine the car and engine as a copmplete package, whilst the other teams have had question marks and blank spaces waiting to be filled when Mercedes released the final engine specifications.

Honda will probably get a bigger advantage in taking a similar approach of optimisation with McLaren than by jerking their knees and trying to copy Mercedes.

I must have imagined that the 6 running Mercedes powered cars finished in the top 8 at the last GP.

[John D.]

The biggest advantage of the Merc engine configuration is cooling I believe. Which allows them amongst other things to use water to air intercoolers or rads (I can't remember which!) I think. Water to air is less efficient at cooling but better for aero. They are the only team on the grid doing this. Less drag means less fuel required and so on. That's as I recall from yet another very interesting article in Motorsport this month (apologies for any inaccuracy).

My point is its not just the Merc engine being more powerful and better cooling. Its that they have optimised it and the car to the nth degree and that is where the huge advantage has come from. Honda simply using the same basic turbo configuration is not even the half of it.

[Scuffers]

Dunit said:

Out of interest could MB have a patent for the design?

no, it's been done before pre-war!

and no it's not the great innovation of 2014, yes it's cleaver packaging, but it's hardly earth shattering, it does not get them more power or less heat to loose, it's just better for the way they have packaged the powertrain.

I would be surprised if Honda did not do something similar, I am sure McLaren will have already gone though the layout options with them..

Also, I think it's very disingenuous to suggest that the other Merc engined teams did not get detailed drawings and layouts from Merc at least 12 months before testing started this year.

[S0 What]

RenOHH said:

Come on, do you think McLaren would get away with telling Honda about the Mercedes turbo? They'd be sued for millions of euros/dollars/pounds.

Only IF they were caught by say one of thier employees getting caught photocopying the designs

[entropy]

http://somersf1.blogspot.nl/2014/04/comparing-powe...

[Wh00sher]

Sky had quite an in depth piece on the Merc turbo setup and from what I can remember, they suggested the customer teams weren`t given ALL the information as early as the `works` team. Hence only Mercedes packaging the car to maximise the split-turbo where McLaren and the rest didn`t know all the details to get the most out of the design.

Now they do, but that`s too late to get the most of out the layout on this years car.


In answer to the OP, you`d think that Honda are aware of the split turbo and the benefits it brings, they`ll be looking at doing something similar wouldn`t you ?

[Scuffers]

Sky's bit on it was mostly bullst.

[SmoothCriminal]

I don't understand the big hype about Honda coming back like it will suddenly make mclaren title contenders.

They've had the best engine in the form of merc for years and since Lewis's title they haven't been able to build a car that's either fast enough (even with the best engine) or have the reliability/ making stupid team mistakes.

Look at the way Renault are struggling and they've been in f1 a while not like Honda who have jumped back in when times are good.

[thegreenhell]

SmoothCriminal said:

I don't understand the big hype about Honda coming back like it will suddenly make mclaren title contenders.

They've had the best engine in the form of merc for years and since Lewis's title they haven't been able to build a car that's either fast enough (even with the best engine) or have the reliability/ making stupid team mistakes.

Look at the way Renault are struggling and they've been in f1 a while not like Honda who have jumped back in when times are good.

And to add, Honda haven't built a truly competitive F1 engine for over 20 years. After the Marlboro McLaren years, their V10 and V8 engines only scored a handful of victories over many seasons as both a works and customer engine.

I hope the Mclaren-Honda chemistry works, but neither have a particularly great recent track record.

[DHB07]

Scuffers said:

Sky's bit on it was mostly bullst.

Care to elaborate at all Scuffers?


^ I don't think there is huge hype about Honda transforming McLaren to a winning team, or certainly not from myself. But I think it will be cool to see that partnership again. Not that I remember it - before my time

[AlexS]

PW said:

AlexS said:

I must have imagined that the 6 running Mercedes powered cars finished in the top 8 at the last GP.

If Mercedes trick engine was such an advantage, shouldn't it be 8/8 for all the races?

The argument doesn't hold up when you look at the other results and see the cars directly behind Mercedes are Red Bull and Ferrari, and you consider the other teams running Renault and Ferrari engines aren't top 8 finishers regardless.

If Red Bull can get close to, and in fact onto the podium without special tricks, indeed with a less than perfect engine themselves, clearly you don't NEED to copy Mercedes to succeed if the rest of the package is right. Unfortunately for Honda they have McLaren, who for the last decade have been masters of not getting the whole package right.

Given that two cars suffered clutch failures that were nothing to do with the engine it would have been rather difficult to have 8 running Mercedes powered cars.

Force India and Williams probably have less budget combined than RBR yet still beat them. You seem to be forgetting that the Red Bull does have excellent aero which helped them at Malaysia.

Any way, an interesting article regarding the powerplant integration and how it is different between the works and customer teams.

http://f1elvis.com/2014/04/15/customer-service/

[entropy]

Scuffers said:

Sky's bit on it was mostly bullst.

Agreed. The hype over Mark Hughe's info its as if its the silver bullet for this year. It clearly isn't. It's way more complex than that, you can't expect customer teams to make cars similar to Merc eg. Williams and McLaren make their own gearboxes which affects packaging and weight distribution, then there's rear suspension and rear aero so different teams will have different ideas.