Honda - another disaster ?

[CraigyMc]

DanielSan said:

I thought Ilmor did some work for Mercedes or Renault aswell? Not sure which

All.

Ilmor (the original Ilmor) was bought by MB and turned into MB-HPP, who make PUs for Merc, WIlliams and Force India today.

Ilmor's Special Projects department was spun out as part of the deal
Today, this is Mario Illien's company and is back to being called "Ilmor" - they do engines for Indycar (badged as Chevrolet) and consulting for other companies. They've consulted for Renault in F1 on the Renault PU.

Ilmor are being mooted as helping Honda with their PU now...

[aeropilot]

CraigyMc said:

Ilmor's Special Projects department was spun out as part of the deal
Today, this is Mario Illien's company and is back to being called "Ilmor" - they do engines for Indycar (badged as Chevrolet) and consulting for other companies. They've consulted for Renault in F1 on the Renault PU.

Ilmor are being mooted as helping Honda with their PU now...

Is this the tentative 'link' providing the stories of Torro Rosso now being the team to be the Honda powered team after the Sauber deal has ended, with McLaren maybe taking their Renault engines, giving Red Bull the chance to see/compare with development and if Honda come good, swapping over to become the Honda factory partner...?
Gives Red Bull a lot of options, and makes a lot of sense.
Could be a source of much embarrassment in Woking if Macca dump Honda only for Red Bull/Ilmor to make them come good a few years down the line when Macca are left as a customer engine team.

[CraigyMc]

aeropilot said:

CraigyMc said:

Ilmor's Special Projects department was spun out as part of the deal
Today, this is Mario Illien's company and is back to being called "Ilmor" - they do engines for Indycar (badged as Chevrolet) and consulting for other companies. They've consulted for Renault in F1 on the Renault PU.

Ilmor are being mooted as helping Honda with their PU now...

Is this the tentative 'link' providing the stories of Torro Rosso now being the team to be the Honda powered team after the Sauber deal has ended, with McLaren maybe taking their Renault engines, giving Red Bull the chance to see/compare with development and if Honda come good, swapping over to become the Honda factory partner...?
Gives Red Bull a lot of options, and makes a lot of sense.
Could be a source of much embarrassment in Woking if Macca dump Honda only for Red Bull/Ilmor to make them come good a few years down the line when Macca are left as a customer engine team.

I have no knowledge of an STR+Honda deal, in fact I doubt it'd happen for various reasons. Redbull and Honda do have marketing links on the bike racing side, but F1 is a different set of people.

I think 2018 will see all the existing teams with all the existing PU manufacturers.

[DanielSan]

CraigyMc said:

All.

Ilmor (the original Ilmor) was bought by MB and turned into MB-HPP, who make PUs for Merc, WIlliams and Force India today.

Ilmor's Special Projects department was spun out as part of the deal
Today, this is Mario Illien's company and is back to being called "Ilmor" - they do engines for Indycar (badged as Chevrolet) and consulting for other companies. They've consulted for Renault in F1 on the Renault PU.

Ilmor are being mooted as helping Honda with their PU now...

Well if anyone could help Honda it'd be the people who in one way or another know the strengths and flaws to pretty much everything else on the grid.

I do know there was a level of consultation with them regarding running a variant of the Renault 1.6 V6, along with one or two other options, as a potential motor for the Aston Martin Valkyrie before the decision was made to stay with a V12, wasn't 100% if it was with Ilmor or not but it seems fair to say it more than likely was.

[MissChief]

MissChief said:

I've also heard Mario Ilien is consulting with Honda as well.

Fernando's fastest lap. That car was on RAILS. McLaren's chassis looks really good, maybe even RBR good.

Sorry I thought I put the link in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhwwfU1m0vA

[Dr Z]

MissChief said:

Sorry I thought I put the link in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhwwfU1m0vA

Sector times for the FL:

Sector	FL	Previous PB
1	29.228	29.064
2	28.385	29.013
3	22.569	22.765

Couldn't see any discernible difference in top speed between the laps, but he'd been driving a lot slower in S2/3 for the previous laps. He set his personal best sectors prior to the fastest lap at L62/63. Note the S1 time in his fastest lap is 2 tenths slower than his PB. A high 19 would've been possible.

A lot of fuel saving being done still.

[patmahe]

Dr Z said:

MissChief said:

Sorry I thought I put the link in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhwwfU1m0vA

Sector times for the FL:

Sector	FL	Previous PB
1	29.228	29.064
2	28.385	29.013
3	22.569	22.765

Couldn't see any discernible difference in top speed between the laps, but he'd been driving a lot slower in S2/3 for the previous laps. He set his personal best sectors prior to the fastest lap at L62/63. Note the S1 time in his fastest lap is 2 tenths slower than his PB. A high 19 would've been possible.

A lot of fuel saving being done still.

Goes to show they must be in fuel management mode a lot of the time and far from flat out, must be so frustrating to know there is performance there but you cannot use all of it, I know all teams will have an element of this but McLaren seem to have to hold back a lot. Seems like Fernando was making a point about the chassis as much as just trying to nail it for one lap.

[lee_fr200]

So how are mclaren pretty fast in testing but slow when it comes to actual quali and the race!

I do hope they sort it out soon

[cuprabob]

lee_fr200 said:

So how are mclaren pretty fast in testing but slow when it comes to actual quali and the race!

I do hope they sort it out soon

Alonso had the fastest lap in the race and qualified 6th.

It's down to the nature of the circuit.

Edited by cuprabob on Wednesday 2nd August 23:37

[CraigyMc]

cuprabob said:

lee_fr200 said:

So how are mclaren pretty fast in testing but slow when it comes to actual quali and the race!

I do hope they sort it out soon

Alonso had the fastest lap in the race and qualified 6th.

It's down to the nature of the circuit.

Alonso got the fastest lap of the race (at the end) by backing off, charging up then doing a quali-style lap with no fuel or battery saving.
It's not representative of McLaren versus anyone else because nobody else did that - and it would not be possible for his car to do a subsequent lap in the same configuration.

Alonso has done this at several GPs this year - you will note his last few laps of any GP (if he's not fighting for position) are fast/slow/fast/slow because he's doing this sort of thing.

There are no points in it (for fastest lap in F1) but it at least gives the team some testing data, and Alonso gets to show that he can drive.

[thegreenhell]

It's looking increasingly likely that McLaren will continue with Honda next year. Honda doesn't seem able to conclude a supply deal with any other teams, and both Ferrari and Mercedes are allegedly unwillingly to supply McLaren. This would leave Renault as the only other possibility for McLaren, but with STR deciding to stay with Renault it would mean a fourth supply for the French manufacturer, and Honda having to leave the sport.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/toro-rosso-hond...

[trackdemon]

Talks back to McLaren going to Renault, as they won't keep Fernando without and engine change. Honda have had a decent crack of the whip anyway, and the chassis is clearly quite capable - yet more frustration with losing positions hand over fist at Spa, every car flying past the McLaren on the Kemmel, and a double DNF at Monza. It's time, surely? Obviously contracts may prove a stumbling block, but if they can agree a Honda deal for Toro Rosso (and RB don't care about that team getting points really, just somewhere to blood new drivers) then perhaps that's the element which paves a way for things to change. McLaren would surely be a more attractive sponsorship package with a reasonably competitive engine?.....

[Buzz84]

trackdemon said:

*snip* and a double DNF at Monza. *snip*

Not defending Honda in any way, but Alonso's was a gearbox failure, A McLaren built part, not the engine. I seem to recall there have been some other DNF's for McLaren that were not the fault of Honda.

[trackdemon]

Buzz84 said:

trackdemon said:

*snip* and a double DNF at Monza. *snip*

Not defending Honda in any way, but Alonso's was a gearbox failure, A McLaren built part, not the engine. I seem to recall there have been some other DNF's for McLaren that were not the fault of Honda.

No doubt, and there's talk of tactical retirement too, but the point is it's happening, and 2.5yrs into the project the progress isn't anything like fast enough to give any indication that 2018 or 2019 will deliver the improvement needed. I do wonder if such a separation could be regrettable in decades to come, should Honda return to the sport as a leader and reject any potential deal with McLaren, but surely McLaren have taken enough pain by now?...

[anonymous-user]

Buzz84 said:

trackdemon said:

*snip* and a double DNF at Monza. *snip*

Not defending Honda in any way, but Alonso's was a gearbox failure, A McLaren built part, not the engine. I seem to recall there have been some other DNF's for McLaren that were not the fault of Honda.

It depends what is causing the failures, if there is a vibration issue in the engine it could destroy any part of the car.

[aeropilot]

jsf said:

Buzz84 said:

trackdemon said:

*snip* and a double DNF at Monza. *snip*

Not defending Honda in any way, but Alonso's was a gearbox failure, A McLaren built part, not the engine. I seem to recall there have been some other DNF's for McLaren that were not the fault of Honda.

It depends what is causing the failures, if there is a vibration issue in the engine it could destroy any part of the car.

I did laugh at the quip from DC on the C4 commentary when Vandorne slowed up with his engine sounding like a bag of spanners being shaken around......

[Gary C]

Nick said in Feb 2017

Nick_Johnson said:

This is all just noise and no more!!

Honda have already successfully implemented a workaround for the oil issue which has seen the Mcl32 complete over 50 Laps today, going forward the new a new Australian GP-Spec Power Unit will be introduced for next weeks final pre-season test.

Yep, that proved to work out well.

Just give it up Honda.

[Leroy902]

With the same spec engine as red Bull, they'd lag behind them.
The the Merc and Ferrari engines are superior to the Renault. The best mclaren could hope for is 7th & 8th.

[Vaud]

Leroy902 said:

With the same spec engine as red Bull, they'd lag behind them.
The the Merc and Ferrari engines are superior to the Renault. The best mclaren could hope for is 7th & 8th.

We will see... i suspect a newly fired up alonso could pull some podiums out of the bag with some races (especially safety car / wet /etc)

[CanAm]

aeropilot said:

I did laugh at the quip from DC on the C4 commentary when Vandorne slowed up with his engine sounding like a bag of spanners being shaken around......

And what was the quip?