*** Winter Testing #3 - Barcelona ***

[RobGT81]

The McLaren is broken again, hydraulic leak so engine out. 7 laps.

Edited by RobGT81 on Thursday 26th February 13:49

[allergictocheese]

<Surprised face>

[paolow]

Staggering. Not just the sheer number of faults but the fact that so many need the complete removal of the power unit to overcome them. It's all well and good trying to put a brave face on it but mclaren are going to end up like the PIAA tyrell-Yamaha's at this rate....

[rallycross]

RobGT81 said:

The McLaren is broken again, hydraulic leak so engine out. 7 laps.

Edited by RobGT81 on Thursday 26th February 13:49

I said this on the previous testing threads but this is a shocking show for Honda and McLaren, they've had plenty of time and they turn up with a car that wont run reliably or quickly, Jenson might be looking at another season like 2008 when he was at the back (18th in WDC).

[CocoPops]

I don't get why Honda couldn't put the engine (or a derivative) into a old NSX (or scaffold framed car) and blat around Suzuka 24/7?

[brierleys]

CocoPops said:

I don't get why Honda couldn't put the engine (or a derivative) into a old NSX (or scaffold framed car) and blat around Suzuka 24/7?

Agreed. These problems make no sense to me. Could they not have bolted in into some kind of race car last year, completed some miles and get these issues sorted out in advance?

[andyps]

Pretty sure it is against the rules to do that with the engine. And in reality, would running an engine for an open wheeled racer in an enclosed body give much information other than that it overheated really quickly?

[RobGT81]

They don't need to put it in a mule. Mercedes managed to build a new powertrain without too many issues, Honda should be able to do the same.

[Vaud]

Gaz. said:

There was a gentleman's agreement that they wouldn't put this engine in a car and pound around Suzuka & Montegi. To the letter of the rules, Honda could have bought several two year old Mclaren F1 cars as mules.

Question- if RBR were in this boat would they have honoured a gentleman's agreement? Not on your nelly.

And didn't Ferrari drop one into a road car mule at their test track? Or was that disproven, I forget.

[MG511]

The new NSX is going to have a mid-mounted petrol-hybrid V6, quite why they could not sneak the F1 engine into a few test mules and blatt around Motegi (which Honda own and can sort out security for...) I don't understand. They are looking a shambles, no point paying Alonso $40 million a year to run around 5 seconds off the pace for a handful of laps each race. I just don't understand how they can spend so much and be so crap and, seemingly, clueless.

[andyps]

MG511 said:

The new NSX is going to have a mid-mounted petrol-hybrid V6, quite why they could not sneak the F1 engine into a few test mules and blatt around Motegi (which Honda own and can sort out security for...) I don't understand. They are looking a shambles, no point paying Alonso $40 million a year to run around 5 seconds off the pace for a handful of laps each race. I just don't understand how they can spend so much and be so crap and, seemingly, clueless.

I guess I would prefer them to publicly have some issues but do so with ethics and honour rather than cheat through using a method they agreed not to and have the issues behind closed doors. It is good to know that principles still mean something to Honda and McLaren.

[Munter]

Apparently a lass called Carmen Jorda is now a Lotus F1 test driver.

http://www.lotusf1team.com/news-archive/one-step-c...

[MG511]

andyps said:

I guess I would prefer them to publicly have some issues but do so with ethics and honour rather than cheat through using a method they agreed not to and have the issues behind closed doors. It is good to know that principles still mean something to Honda and McLaren.

How very British, wanting to be an honourable loser. As Gaz said above, Ferrari did it, and I'm sure others have too. I'd rather have as many competitive cars as possible, F1 viewing figures were well down last year and another year of Merc domination will only make things worse.

[hornetrider]

Munter said:

Apparently a lass called Carmen Jorda is now a Lotus F1 test driver.

http://www.lotusf1team.com/news-archive/one-step-c...

Very easy on the eye

[andyps]

MG511 said:

How very British, wanting to be an honourable loser. As Gaz said above, Ferrari did it, and I'm sure others have too. I'd rather have as many competitive cars as possible, F1 viewing figures were well down last year and another year of Merc domination will only make things worse.

History is full of areas where Ferrari have not followed the rules in F1, or have had them changed in their favour. I don't think that is good for the sport, or business of F1 and I don't think it would be for others to do the same - Red Bull seem to want to follow the same path.

I agree that there needs to be as many competitive cars as possible but I wouldn't watch something if the rules were not applied appropriately as it then becomes a sham. Mercedes domination last year can hardly be blamed for falling viewing figures - they may have been the superior team but they allowed their drivers to race each other, and they did that providing great racing. The domination of Ferrari in particular when Schumacher was winning was not good to watch as it was certain that there was no racing within the team, and the same pretty much applied to Red Bull with Vettel so after 9 years of that sort of dominance it is very short sighted to blame Mercedes. Look at the deals Ecclestone has done which have taken races off free to air channels in many countries (including half the races in the UK for live broadcast of course, partly due to the BBC but mainly down to the fees demanded) to easily understand why viewing figures are down.

[anonymous-user]

I can't remember, were Red Bull in as much s**t last year as McLaren are in now?

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/6401/mcl...

You don't need autosport premium to know that Gary Anderson is 100% correct here in the first 3 paragraphs. The excuse of "it's testing" is long gone.

[anonymous-user]

RenOHH said:

I can't remember, were Red Bull in as much s**t last year as McLaren are in now?

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/6401/mcl...

You don't need autosport premium to know that Gary Anderson is 100% correct here in the first 3 paragraphs. The excuse of "it's testing" is long gone.

You don't really need Anderson to see the obvious though, do you?

[DanielSan]

I think Mclaren have done a bit less mileage, but Red Bull had never run a race distance before Melbourne last year so they're in roughly the same position. Mclaren said last week they haven't opened the taps full on the motor yet so we don't even know it's relative pace. The only thing we know so far is it doesn't look like it'll reach the finish in Australia or Malaysia a few days later.

[anonymous-user]

REALIST123 said:

You don't really need Anderson to see the obvious though, do you?

Just putting some weight behind my views! All hell broke loose in the Jerez thread when some of dared to say McLaren-Honda had messed it up.

[anonymous-user]

DanielSan said:

I think Mclaren have done a bit less mileage, but Red Bull had never run a race distance before Melbourne last year so they're in roughly the same position. Mclaren said last week they haven't opened the taps full on the motor yet so we don't even know it's relative pace. The only thing we know so far is it doesn't look like it'll reach the finish in Australia or Malaysia a few days later.

Unless McLaren do an awful lot of laps over the next few days they'll have a lot less mileage under their belts than RBR last year.

And with all the other teams and engine manufacturers having had a year of development, I would suggest McLaren are a lot worse off, relatively, than RBR were at this time last year.

As you say the engine hasn't been run hard yet, and still it keeps failing. Not good, to say the least.