Honda - another disaster ?

[AndStilliRise]

All going pear-shaped. At least with Ron you had some sort of desire/direction. Now you just have a load of muppet's using Mclaren as a marketing tool without a need to win.

TBH, no one is catching Mercedes anyway so pointless spending millions developing an engine for second place.

[FW18]

Arklight said:

Rumour mill story about possible Honda split

http://www.planetf1.com/news/mclaren-considering-h...

Possible Ferrari tie up just to send Ron fully into orbit?

[Vocal Minority]

Less than zero of them changind pre-season.

or mid realistically.

The chassis doesn't look much cop this year either

[AndStilliRise]

The biggest issue with F1 is that there is no money in the sport. If you are winning then it bodes well, as you can use the marketing and the prize money to develop and stay further ahead (Mercedes). If on the other hand you are mid-field team (Williams, Force India) then the requirement for staying in the business is different to requiring to win, so the mid field teams are looking to build funds and move forward.

Honda's biggest issue is Mercedes as they are completely dominating the sport.

[Nick_Johnson]

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.

[RichB]

AndStilliRise said:

Honda's biggest issue is Mercedes as they are completely dominating the sport

I think you misjudge that. If you base you look at testing times then clearly Ferrari are very close to Mercedes this season. It's up to the other teams to improve so hats off to Mercedes for raising the bar and bravo Ferrari for responding.

McLaren/Honda's biggest issue is themselves not another competitor.

[budgie smuggler]

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.

I don't understand how they keep having installation niggles. 2015, 2016 and 2017. FFS. Do they not run these things on a shaker rig or whatever to find these issues before first test?

The laps they've missed out on will cost them in terms of understanding the car setup, aero etc all season.

[MartG]

budgie smuggler said:

I don't understand how they keep having installation niggles. 2015, 2016 and 2017. FFS. Do they not run these things on a shaker rig or whatever to find these issues before first test?

The laps they've missed out on will cost them in terms of understanding the car setup, aero etc all season.

I guess they'd need to strap them to a centrifuge to mimic the G force they get when cornering - I don't think anyone does this though

[lee_fr200]

This engine won't be the spec for Melbourne apparently anyway they're just concentrating on aero apparently,

Now they've seen how quick merc and Ferrari are they will be working on their race engine night n day to bring it upto speed!

Or is that wishful thinking because I'm a mclaren fan!

Still wish jb was in the car

[RKi]

Sounds like a load of sh!te to me.

[FeelingLucky]

lee_fr200 said:

This engine won't be the spec for Melbourne apparently anyway they're just concentrating on aero apparently,

Now they've seen how quick merc and Ferrari are they will be working on their race engine night n day to bring it upto speed!

Or is that wishful thinking because I'm a mclaren fan!

Still wish jb was in the car

Yes, I believe it IS wishful thinking.
We're now fully back to 2015 (brand new PU) where they can't get the car to run long enough to get any meaningful testing done, which will cost them all year long.

This I suspect will cost them any chance of a top line 2018 title sponsor, and could potentially be the beginning of the end for McLaren.

JB is no fool, he saw what was awaiting in 2017 and decided (wisely IMO) to get out with some cred intact.
I have not changed my view that McLaren's contract with Honda will ultimately end the team:-

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=153...

So sad to see.

[The Vambo]

RichB said:

If you base you look at testing times then clearly Ferrari are very close to Mercedes this season.

Is that how testing works?

[NRS]

Vocal Minority said:

The chassis doesn't look much cop this year either

How on earth can you possibly "know" that? They've had almost no running, and we have no idea on setup etc. It's as silly a comment as McLaren changing engine suppliers in the next few weeks for this season.

[Trabi601]

Biggest problem is the ban on testing outside of minimal official tests.

It means that you are either in the right place on race day 1, or you may as well write off the season and start to work on next season. Only you can't really do that, either, as you can't even test next season's car until the official test.

Gone are the days where you could turn a dog into a race winner by going back to your 'home' track and letting the test driver out to pound the circuit until you've fixed the problems.

Even though we've now scrapped the development tokens, Mercedes have such a huge lead on engine development (through landing it right on day 1 of the turbo formula) we may never see anyone else truly catch them until there's another engine change.

Add to that the Mercedes budget, which surpasses even what Ferrari can throw at the car, and you have a pretty non-competitive formula where what you get at race 1 is continued until there's a major regulation change (ie. new engine as well as aero / chassis changes) or until Mercedes get bored.

[stevesuk]

Gary Anderson suggested on the Autosport live feed this afternoon that it might not be a HP deficit "McLaren can't complain about a lack of Honda power. Alonso just can't get on the throttle properly between Turn 2 and Turn 3 because of a lack of overall grip. There's plenty more of the old gee-gees available if the chassis was stronger."

[PhillipM]

Yes....or you know, it could be the mapping needs refining on that engine that has only done a few laps...

Gary seems to be getting worse year on year when it comes to testing soundbites.

[rubystone]

RichB said:

I think you misjudge that. If you base you look at testing times then clearly Ferrari are very close to Mercedes this season. It's up to the other teams to improve so hats off to Mercedes for raising the bar and bravo Ferrari for responding.

McLaren/Honda's biggest issue is themselves not another competitor.

I think you might find that Mercedes aren't trying very hard. This time last year...long runs, lots of laps, Ferrari setting faster laps....sound familiar?

[Vocal Minority]

Except Ferrari are string their lap times on harder compounds in long runs. Whilst racking up laps.

No qualifying simulations like last year

[Dakkon]

FeelingLucky said:

lee_fr200 said:

This engine won't be the spec for Melbourne apparently anyway they're just concentrating on aero apparently,

Now they've seen how quick merc and Ferrari are they will be working on their race engine night n day to bring it upto speed!

Or is that wishful thinking because I'm a mclaren fan!

Still wish jb was in the car

Yes, I believe it IS wishful thinking.
We're now fully back to 2015 (brand new PU) where they can't get the car to run long enough to get any meaningful testing done, which will cost them all year long.

This I suspect will cost them any chance of a top line 2018 title sponsor, and could potentially be the beginning of the end for McLaren.

JB is no fool, he saw what was awaiting in 2017 and decided (wisely IMO) to get out with some cred intact.
I have not changed my view that McLaren's contract with Honda will ultimately end the team:-

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=153...

So sad to see.

Wise words here, if they fail to get a title sponsor this year then there will be real question marks over their survival in the coming years, they are heading towards a critical point in their history.

[rubystone]

Dakkon said:

Wise words here, if they fail to get a title sponsor this year then there will be real question marks over their survival in the coming years, they are heading towards a critical point in their history.

Why do people think the team won't be able to survive? The rest of the McLaren group is profitable and their road car division trades heavily on the F1 link. This notion of a 'title sponsor' with deep pockets covering a large chunk of the operating budget has been dismissed by many in the business as being a thing of the past. In essence Honda is the title sponsor if one looks at which partner pays the most.

I'm sure that many people are impressed by Williams having Martini as a title sponsor? In reality that deal isn't worth anything like what it should be worth given the exposure Martini gets on the car. I can't recall the figures, but they are 'low'.

I predict that unlike RD, ZB will cut the rate card and sign someone as 'title sponsor' for 2018 just to take the heat out of this.