Will McLaren survive their Honda contract?
Discussion
GreigM said:
Eric Boullier - why is he escaping the flak? I could never quite understand why McLaren appointed him in the first place, and he's certainly done nothing noticeable for the team in the meantime in terms of managing the PR/expectations. Given the grief Martin Whitmarsh was given during his stewardship, why isn't EB experiencing the same or worse?
I always wondered why they took him on?If i was McLaren, i would be on brawn's doorstep with a bag of cash, he's the kind of leader they need right now.
GreigM said:
Eric Boullier - why is he escaping the flak? I could never quite understand why McLaren appointed him in the first place, and he's certainly done nothing noticeable for the team in the meantime in terms of managing the PR/expectations. Given the grief Martin Whitmarsh was given during his stewardship, why isn't EB experiencing the same or worse?
What can Boullier do about it? What can anyone at McLaren do about it? The biggest problem McLaren have is the Honda power unit and there's very little anyone at Woking can do about that. Same at Red Bull, their problem is the Renault power unit but jumping up and down about it has just made a bad situation worse, now they've no confirmed engine for 2016.GreigM said:
Eric Boullier - why is he escaping the flak? I could never quite understand why McLaren appointed him in the first place, and he's certainly done nothing noticeable for the team in the meantime in terms of managing the PR/expectations. Given the grief Martin Whitmarsh was given during his stewardship, why isn't EB experiencing the same or worse?
I've never thought he's done much at McLaren either. Is he still Grosjean's manager?ajprice said:
GreigM said:
Eric Boullier - why is he escaping the flak? I could never quite understand why McLaren appointed him in the first place, and he's certainly done nothing noticeable for the team in the meantime in terms of managing the PR/expectations. Given the grief Martin Whitmarsh was given during his stewardship, why isn't EB experiencing the same or worse?
I've never thought he's done much at McLaren either. Is he still Grosjean's manager?Boullier was the CEO for years, part of the Genii setup.
Whether he is still involved in that company is another question (and one I can't answer since they don't have to make it public: the company is based in Luxembourg).
Given his fallout with Gerard Lopez, I'd say Boullier probably isn't involved in Gravity any more.
Gaz. said:
He's the team principle so surely this 'size zero' nonsense rests with him? RBR have tried it, it doesn't work with these engines, Mclaren-Honda are doing it now and have found the hard way that it doesn't work for them either. There is no point having a fancy shrink wrapped car with mega aero if everything underneath the car is overheating and causing you to retire.
Retiring is the least of their problems, being 100bhp down at the end of the straights is more of an issue I'd guess. If Honda had made a powerful engine, and McLaren topped the league for speed on the straights but the car couldn't make it to the end of the race, then maybe I'd agree, but that's not the case. Honda need to get their side of the equation right before any fingers of blame can be pointed at Boullier, imo.
RYH64E said:
Honda need to get their side of the equation right before any fingers of blame can be pointed at Boullier, imo.
what we don't know is what constraints McLaren put on Honda to start with.I can imagine at the start of the prject, McLaren said make it small etc, Honda came up with the axial compressor that enabled the turbo to be lower in the engine V, they sold this to McLaren who then designed the car round this small package, only to find the turbo is a pile of s
t.Easy to say this now, but Honda should never have committed to the axial compressor plan without testing it to death first, I can't believe it would take that long to figure out the limitations of such a setup (especially when you consider the whole point in the PU regs was to promote efficiency).
suffolk009 said:
Honda will get the engine sorted out.
I agree, but it remains to be seen whether it will happen quickly enough to save the partnership with McLaren. I am optimistic that they will be competitive with Ferrari from the start of 2016, in terms of power if not reliability.red_duke said:
suffolk009 said:
Honda will get the engine sorted out.
Mercedes run of dominance will end, these things always do.
I disagree. The current engine development restrictions mean the music has stopped and engine manufacturers are now stuck with what they have.Mercedes run of dominance will end, these things always do.
Scuffers said:
what we don't know is what constraints McLaren put on Honda to start with.
I can imagine at the start of the prject, McLaren said make it small etc, Honda came up with the axial compressor that enabled the turbo to be lower in the engine V, they sold this to McLaren who then designed the car round this small package, only to find the turbo is a pile of st.
Easy to say this now, but Honda should never have committed to the axial compressor plan without testing it to death first, I can't believe it would take that long to figure out the limitations of such a setup (especially when you consider the whole point in the PU regs was to promote efficiency).
If the constraints were unreasonable then Honda should have said no, they're meant to be the experts when it comes to engine design.I can imagine at the start of the prject, McLaren said make it small etc, Honda came up with the axial compressor that enabled the turbo to be lower in the engine V, they sold this to McLaren who then designed the car round this small package, only to find the turbo is a pile of s
t.Easy to say this now, but Honda should never have committed to the axial compressor plan without testing it to death first, I can't believe it would take that long to figure out the limitations of such a setup (especially when you consider the whole point in the PU regs was to promote efficiency).
suffolk009 said:
Honda will get the engine sorted out.
Mercedes run of dominance will end, these things always do.
Agree with the second bit, but dominance usually changes sides when there is a shake up of the regs. So unless that happens sometime soon my money would be on a Merc constructors championship next year again.Mercedes run of dominance will end, these things always do.
No guarantees Honda will sort out the engine. They might get it more powerful, but competitive against the Merc or Ferrari engine is a-whole-nother matter.
London424 said:
I don't believe that's the case. I read an interview from one of the Merc guys who said with the number of tokens they had available he could almost completely redesign the whole engine.
But he would say that, wouldn't he?For both Renault and Honda to get it so badly wrong, and seemingly unable to make the slightest in-season improvement, I worry that the die is cast for the foreseeable future.
I think another reason for the alternate engine spec. is that, finally, the penny has dropped at the FIA - they needed to cost-cap them from the outset.
Edited by rdjohn on Wednesday 18th November 16:52
rdjohn said:
But he would say that, wouldn't he?
For both Renault and Honda to get it so badly wrong, and seemingly unable to make the slightest in-season improvement, I worry that the die is cast for the foreseeable future.
I think another reason for the alternate engine spec. is that, finally, the penny has dropped at the FIA - they needed to cost-cap them from the outset.
my view is that particularly with Honda, they can argue that for reliability reasons they need to change XYZ without having to use their tokens, I really can't see them having any issue with this what so ever, NOBODY can possibly argue their reliability (or lack of).For both Renault and Honda to get it so badly wrong, and seemingly unable to make the slightest in-season improvement, I worry that the die is cast for the foreseeable future.
I think another reason for the alternate engine spec. is that, finally, the penny has dropped at the FIA - they needed to cost-cap them from the outset.
Renault are in a harder spot, they seen to be very much penned in by Red Bull, as in whatever changes they want to make won't fit the red-bull car (I'm surmising this).
As for the cheaper engine proposal, it's just bat-s
t, the horse has left the stable some time ago.rdjohn said:
London424 said:
I don't believe that's the case. I read an interview from one of the Merc guys who said with the number of tokens they had available he could almost completely redesign the whole engine.
But he would say that, wouldn't he?For both Renault and Honda to get it so badly wrong, and seemingly unable to make the slightest in-season improvement, I worry that the die is cast for the foreseeable future.
I think another reason for the alternate engine spec. is that, finally, the penny has dropped at the FIA - they needed to cost-cap them from the outset.
Edited by rdjohn on Wednesday 18th November 16:52
London424 said:
Ferrari seem to have sorted it...so it's not impossible!
If by "sorted" you mean they are now only 0.5 to 0.7 sec a lap slower than Merc instead of 1.5..... and while the Ferrari power unit is clearly much improved from 2014 there have still been numerous examples of Mercedes engined cars just breezing past the Ferrari on long straights this year. IMO one of the biggest dangers for Ferrari at the moment is they are starting to believe their own hype... somehow they have spun finishing 10 seconds behind Merc as an achievement, even when Merc are nursing tyres and clearly not 100% flat out.
Edited by VolvoT5 on Wednesday 18th November 17:13
realistically, it takes a few seasons to get to the ultimate for a given set of regs.
the current issues are that Merc started in a much better place, and whilst Ferrari have improved dramatically from 2014 to 2015, Merc were not standing still.
in 2-3 seasons time, I suspect the differences will be much smaller as Merc run out of development room within the regs.
the current issues are that Merc started in a much better place, and whilst Ferrari have improved dramatically from 2014 to 2015, Merc were not standing still.
in 2-3 seasons time, I suspect the differences will be much smaller as Merc run out of development room within the regs.
VolvoT5 said:
London424 said:
Ferrari seem to have sorted it...so it's not impossible!
If by "sorted" you mean they are now only 0.5 to 0.7 sec a lap slower than Merc instead of 1.5..... and while the Ferrari power unit is clearly much improved from 2014 there have still been numerous examples of Mercedes engined cars just breezing past the Ferrari on long straights this year. IMO one of the biggest dangers for Ferrari at the moment is they are starting to believe their own hype... somehow they have spun finishing 10 seconds behind Merc as an achievement, even when Merc are nursing tyres and clearly not 100% flat out.
Edited by VolvoT5 on Wednesday 18th November 17:13
Ferrari from one year to the next, and even within year have made significant steps with the engine side of things. It's not impossible to develop the engines.
You've even got a massive get-out of 'reliability' where you can change anything! You don't even need tokens.
Scuffers said:
realistically, it takes a few seasons to get to the ultimate for a given set of regs.
the current issues are that Merc started in a much better place, and whilst Ferrari have improved dramatically from 2014 to 2015, Merc were not standing still.
in 2-3 seasons time, I suspect the differences will be much smaller as Merc run out of development room within the regs.
Quite.the current issues are that Merc started in a much better place, and whilst Ferrari have improved dramatically from 2014 to 2015, Merc were not standing still.
in 2-3 seasons time, I suspect the differences will be much smaller as Merc run out of development room within the regs.
In this case, a lot of the issue with Merc dominance is that Merc started developing to the new regs a lot earlier than the others, and with a lot more resource behind each part of the car.
Remember when Ross Brawn hired a galaxy of technical chiefs all at the same time back in 2012? (if you don't - http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/98225/ )
People were saying that'd not work... well guess what?
In fact it appears that all the guys Brawn hired at the time knuckled down and covered large parts of the Merc car to a greater development degree and in better detail than any of the other teams managed... and that's without talking about what happened with the Merc PU.
Merc just poured more resource into already well-staffed/funded/experienced teams and came out with predictably more mature, more reliable, more efficient systems.
Compare that with Honda. Brand new team, brand new concepts, no track testing until the MP4-29H.
McLaren have been busily rebuilding their team too. Peter Prodromou (aero guy from RBR, was under Newey for years and before that was a McLaren guy) is a great asset, but he's not the only one they've hired recently. There are threads on F1technical about people moving about (some guys on that site monitor linkedin to watch staff moving around).
Combine the issues Honda have been having with their first season back in F1 with the token restrictions they have on introducing any developments to this years' engine.
I suspect that they'll have a pretty much totally new ERS next year - and that it'll work.
I think they will have selected to spend their 9 tokens for this year on parts that will be compatible/matching for next years' ERS, even if they don't fundamentally make much improvement if any to this years' engine.
(For what it's worth, I think that's why Renault bothered to put their tokens into something that didn't make much of a difference to Ricciardo's Brazil engine).
It is not at all impossible that there are a couple of really competitive engines already in the so-called "s
te" manufacturer's development labs, but with too many changes required based on the 2015 homologated PUs for them to be allowed to be introduced this season.The manufacturers (even Honda!) won't implement changes outside of the token system because unlike token-based changes, reliability fixes outside the token allowance are automatically circulated to the other engine manufacturers - designs, concepts. Details.
It means giving detailed design/materials specs info to your competitors: the the FIA circulate it as part of the process.
FIA F1 2016 Sporting regs Appendix4 Para5 said:
A manufacturer may apply to the FIA during the course of the homologation period to carry out modifications to their homologated power unit for the sole purposes of reliability, safety, cost-saving.
Applications must be made in writing to the FIA Technical Department and must provide all necessary supporting information including, where appropriate, clear evidence of failures.
The FIA will circulate the correspondence to all manufacturers for comment.
If the FIA is satisfied, in its absolute discretion, that these changes are acceptable, they will confirm to the manufacturer concerned that they may be carried out.
Because of this I'm not convinced any of the manufacturers have actaully ever done any cost-saving changes or reliability ones, outside of the token system.Applications must be made in writing to the FIA Technical Department and must provide all necessary supporting information including, where appropriate, clear evidence of failures.
The FIA will circulate the correspondence to all manufacturers for comment.
If the FIA is satisfied, in its absolute discretion, that these changes are acceptable, they will confirm to the manufacturer concerned that they may be carried out.
Does anyone on here know for sure? (with citation, ideally)
Gassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff