RE: 'McLaren-Honda: a new era' - Time For Coffee?

RE: 'McLaren-Honda: a new era' - Time For Coffee?

Thursday 27th November 2014

'McLaren-Honda: a new era' - Time For Coffee?

The first film of the 2015 McLaren-Honda at Silverstone. Time to get excited!



The 2015 McLaren-Honda F1 car doesn't really need a name. Just the pairing of those two names once more in the world of Grand Prix racing is enough to get motorsport fans giddy with excitement. But it does have a name. It's what you might call a very McLaren name. It's the MP4-29H/1X1, and it can be seen on track for the very first time here. Good job it doesn't need a badge!

Anyway, what is there to know about the car? Not an awful lot actually. McLaren's 'new era in Formula 1' carries a few Honda badges, sounds like the rest of the hybrid F1 cars and looks good in gratuitous slo-mo. Like the Sports Series saga, you sense there will be a fair bit of teasing in 90-second segments before any unadulterated actual car driving footage. And, suckers that we are, we'll probably keep following them until then.

See the video here.

 

Author
Discussion

robinessex

Original Poster:

11,046 posts

180 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Shake down mule. That's it. The cars are visually ugly and 'clones' of each other these days anyway. I bet if you lined up the last GP grid with all the cars the same color, you'd have a dam hard job id'ing them.

aarondbs

843 posts

145 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Brilliant McLaren. Brilliant! No-one to drive the bloomin thing yet, and RD showing himself to be a master of disaster in the PR stakes. You have a World Class driver in JB who has consistently (barring one season) been better than his team mates, has shown himself to be a team player and master tactician too. He has probably one of the greatest GP races and victories to his name (Canada 2011) and still you think that getting Alonso teamed with a rookie guy who appears to be useless the way to go.

And you haven't even confirmed those two yet either....

But still at least you have Honda, no sponsors, drivers or decision makers, but you have Honda and did at least manage 4 laps in two days in Abu Dhabi testing....

Thanks for the vid.

ETA and I am a Mclaren fan... or was perhaps

Edited by aarondbs on Thursday 27th November 11:37

toppstuff

13,698 posts

246 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
It is all fine and dandy watching a F1 car drive around with a Honda logo on it, but the interest in the story they want to sell us ends right there as far as I am concerned.

Far more interesting is the total cluster-duck that is Ron Dennis's management of that team.

Let us remember that in 2014 Mclaren ALREADY HAD THE BEST ENGINE IN F1. They squandered it.

This isn't about the Mclaren driver debacle - which only serves to prove what a mess the team is in - but more importantly the simple fact that McLaren could not make proper use of the best engine in F1 in the 2014 season. There is absolutely no reason to believe that changing the engine ( the only good thing they had ) is going to change anything.

Changing drivers won't achieve anything. Frankly, changing engines may not either.

Mclaren must get rid of Ron Dennis.

Mini 360

42 posts

175 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Im thinking you support Red Bull or Mercedes then?

This sounds different to the rest of the field somehow. Much louder going by a video from the test day pit garage exit too. Honda do lovely things with engines. Very, very cool!

kambites

67,461 posts

220 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
robinessex said:
Shake down mule. That's it. The cars are visually ugly and 'clones' of each other these days anyway. I bet if you lined up the last GP grid with all the cars the same color, you'd have a dam hard job id'ing them.
Really? I think they differ more this year than they have done in decades, although the differences are admittedly mostly just in the nose-cone design.

thatdude

2,654 posts

126 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Honda, being Honda, won't let McLaren perform badly. It reflects badly on Honda, who - being japanese - are very concerned with "keeping up appearances".

The Mclaren will develop reasonably quickly. Net season will be a development year, then after that saerious results will be expected.

  1. I am suprised they are dithering on driver line-up. It would be good to retain JB, given his previous employment by Honda

toppstuff

13,698 posts

246 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
thatdude said:
Honda, being Honda, won't let McLaren perform badly. It reflects badly on Honda, who - being japanese - are very concerned with "keeping up appearances".

The Mclaren will develop reasonably quickly. Net season will be a development year, then after that saerious results will be expected.

  1. I am suprised they are dithering on driver line-up. It would be good to retain JB, given his previous employment by Honda
Honda showed a remarkable tolerance of crapness when they were partnered with BAR.

I think their patience may well be tested here as well.

I have long chosen Mclaren as my favourite team, but I despair at the management of the team these days.

If Honda have any sense they will remove Ron and put together a team in the mould of Mercedes. The collaboration between Paddy Lowe, Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda is one of the reasons why Mercedes were so dominant.

There isn't a chance in hell of Mclaren achieving the same team ethos with Ron in charge.

PhantomPH

4,043 posts

224 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Are they being forced into 'improving' the aural experience for 2015? Or was that big debate quickly forgotten about?

FWDRacer

3,564 posts

223 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
toppstuff said:
There isn't a chance in hell of Mclaren achieving the same team ethos with Ron in charge.
Because they haven't previously rolleyes

Some people have short memories. I don't have a lot of love for the leather bomber jacketed one, but a c*ck knocker he isn't.

He does need to re-sign JB. His PR value in Japan is mighty.

toppstuff

13,698 posts

246 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
FWDRacer said:
Because they haven't previously rolleyes

Some people have short memories. I don't have a lot of love for the leather bomber jacketed one, but a c*ck knocker he isn't.

He does need to re-sign JB. His PR value in Japan is mighty.
That was then, this is now.

Mclaren already had the best engines.

Mclaren already had good drivers including a WDC.

So it must be a problem with the structure, management, and team dynamic.

toppstuff

13,698 posts

246 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
ash73 said:
toppstuff said:
Let us remember that in 2014 Mclaren ALREADY HAD THE BEST ENGINE IN F1. They squandered it.
All Merc engines are equal; but some Merc engines are more equal than others...?
That doesn't explain how Williams roundly defeated Mclaren. And Williams came from a much lower base and with a much lower budget.

swisstoni

16,848 posts

278 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
McLaren and Honda were once mighty together. Probably the only relic from either company from those days is RD himself.
Ron has been talking up the new engine as a bit of a monster but, as mentioned, they had the best engine this year too!

I hope they sort themselves out.

Mark-C

5,010 posts

204 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Mini 360 said:
Im thinking you support Red Bull or Mercedes then?

This sounds different to the rest of the field somehow. Much louder going by a video from the test day pit garage exit too. Honda do lovely things with engines. Very, very cool!
See some of the other threads - a lot of us old school McLaren fans are very fed up with where things are with the team at the moment. The criticism does not mean we are fans of other teams - quite the opposite.

As for the noise, it's been discussed on the Abu Dhabi test thread and it does sound different but the assumption is it's not running full boost or most of the power harvesting so that's why it sounds different.

Hard to tell given how little it's run.

thiscocks

3,127 posts

194 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
They need to sort that bloody horrible 'SAP' logo too for next year

Thunder18

160 posts

118 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Drivers will be announced on or after Dec 1st. Day 2 of testing didn't go well at all, an electrical gremlin haunts them, sounds like the beginning of testing for the 2014 season...

and no, there is a distinct difference in the sound of the Honda unit, even Vandoorne stated it!!
"Firstly, I want to say that wearing Honda's famous ‘H' logo on the chest of my overalls and team kit makes me feel extremely proud. We'd hoped to get a few more laps under our belts today. But the team are already analyzing the situation and we'll hopefully cure it ahead of tomorrow. The purpose of this test is to enable the engineers to deepen their knowledge of the McLaren and Honda collaboration. This is their first time working together at the track, and – operationally – it's all a bit different. We're still building up the power – we haven't run the engine at full power yet – so it's difficult to get a feeling for it, but it sounds absolutely fantastic!"

duffy78

470 posts

138 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
robinessex said:
Shake down mule. That's it. The cars are visually ugly and 'clones' of each other these days anyway. I bet if you lined up the last GP grid with all the cars the same color, you'd have a dam hard job id'ing them.
A fan of the sport wouldn't.

Howrare

302 posts

205 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Great that this pairing are back in F1. Great to know that it'll sound a bit more like an F1 car, and less like a washing machine on spin (although I kinda got used to it by seasons end). That vid deffo had some old school sound over dubbed though. Fingers crossed for a great 2015 season and I hope Button stays.

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
Mini 360 said:
Im thinking you support Red Bull or Mercedes then?

This sounds different to the rest of the field somehow. Much louder going by a video from the test day pit garage exit too. Honda do lovely things with engines. Very, very cool!
Over on F1 technical, they believe it's louder because none of the energy recovery stuff was used in the shakedown at Silverstone. Vandoorne said it was not running at full power, and to run at full power you need the ERS gubbins to be working. Reduced harvesting of energy from exhaust = more noise.

My 2p: that video was really bad.

Edited by RenOHH on Thursday 27th November 13:06

chrispphunt

13 posts

123 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
I'm really excited by the partnership and i hope they can put together a car good enough to get Mclaren back up there.
As an F1 fan i want the new car to be white and orange, i want williams to be even stronger and i want ferrari and renault to bring there engine more on par- that would make for an epic season!

Dannbodge

2,160 posts

120 months

Thursday 27th November 2014
quotequote all
I'm really exited about the Honda-Mclaren partnership.
Really hope that they retain JB as he is an asset. He knows how to set up a car, develop a car and win races.
It's apparently Eric Boullier that is stalling them as he thinks JB is too slow and not a good enough driver.

Canada 2011 was one of the best GPs I've ever watched.

Mclarens form lately has been appalling and I really hope Honda push them to do better.

As above too. I would love to see the Red/White or Orange Mclarens back on the grid.


Edited by Dannbodge on Thursday 27th November 13:21