Honda - another disaster ?
Discussion
HustleRussell said:
The main flaw in my theory is the fact that IIRC Vandoorne's car doesn't seem to be appreciably more reliable 
I'd buy that theory. Certainly seemed like Stoff was getting eaten on the fast stuff far more than Alonso, and that can't be all down to skill difference. There's only so far the throttle pedal will go. Stoff at least made it to the end yesterday.Dr Z said:
jsf said:
They will be maximising the overall lap time by running the appropriate down force/drag to achieve that, just like all the teams do.
That will naturally mean they will be lighter on down force than they could be with more power available. It's pretty basic stuff.
I know the basics, but given how all cars are being balanced due to extra drag in this year's cars, you don't know that they have extra downforce they can add, if they have an increase in power? That's just speculation.That will naturally mean they will be lighter on down force than they could be with more power available. It's pretty basic stuff.
If they were being compromised, I'd bet we'd have heard about it in the press given how much it was talked about last year.
HustleRussell said:
Rightly or wrongly, having watched Canada I believe that McLaren have their two cars running in different modes- They're running more reliable conservative modes on Vandoorne's car with a view to getting him to the end for the benefit of his own experience and the chance (however unlikely) of a point or two.
Fernando, on the other hand, has heard just about enough about engine saving and had enough of teenagers breezing past him and is insisting upon using more aggressive modes despite the reliability risk. Benefit of this to Nando is twofold; Firstly he looks like a driving god placing the McLaren much higher than it should be, secondly when the engine blows up he and the team can just point the finger at Honda.
Silly theory?
I don't think thats too silly... Perhaps they wouldn't do this just to make Alonso look good, but I could see them doing it with one car because, after-all how can Honda learn what is going wrong if the engine isn't being pushed to its envelope? No good having them both running around in safety mode and likewise, no good having them both run higher risk of blowing up. If anyone is going to give it death, its Alonso so can see why he'd get the riskier mode. Fernando, on the other hand, has heard just about enough about engine saving and had enough of teenagers breezing past him and is insisting upon using more aggressive modes despite the reliability risk. Benefit of this to Nando is twofold; Firstly he looks like a driving god placing the McLaren much higher than it should be, secondly when the engine blows up he and the team can just point the finger at Honda.
Silly theory?
To be honest I have a feeling Alonso just drives the things harder, I am not entirely convinced his Indy failure was just a coincidence... a Honda won the race so the pace and reliability was there, I reckon Alonso is just a bit too rough on the thing some times. Just hunch mind, I have no evidence so don't take it as red.
You can see VD isn't on the same level... at the restart yesterday (not sure if it was from the SC or the VSC) he got totally mugged and lost a fair number of places because it seemed he'd forgotten that his tyres and brakes would be cold so he messed up a number of corners and got rushed. Wouldn't happen to Alonso.
Anyway....
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-latest-honda...
[i]Speaking about the latest Honda failure, McLaren racing director Boullier said: "For the first time this season, running in 10th place within spitting distance of the flag, we dared to hope.
"OK, what we were daring to hope for were hardly rich pickings: a solitary world championship point for Fernando, who had driven superbly all afternoon, as he's driven superbly every race-day afternoon for the past two-and-a-half years.
"But, after so much toil and heartache, even that single point would have felt like a victory. And then came yet another gut-wrenching failure."
"It's difficult to find the right words to express our disappointment, our frustration and, yes, our sadness. So I'll say only this: it's simply, and absolutely, not good enough."[/i]
I think he knows perfectly well what the words are, they were just too rude to repeat. His tone is turning now I think... patience lost. Its not good enough and Honda don't seem to be making any headway.
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Monday 12th June 15:58
My italics don't work? What have I done wrong?
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Monday 12th June 16:02
Dr Z said:
I have seen the GPS data from China and I saw the car lacking in drivability/traction, and not as quick as the Merc/Ferrari in the high speed corners. If I can get it together, I'll post it here. Now, clearly they've been developing the car since then and Monaco and Spain were great performances with the upgrades working very well. Was pleasantly surprised at their performance at Monaco, as last year they struggled to get the car into the window there.
I think the car is working the tyres well and they're not having as much a difficulty as the Merc to dial the car in circuit to circuit.
Someone smarter than I, has managed to extract the GPS data from the Spanish GP qualifying (Hamilton vs Alonso):
I'm a McLaren fan, but if I were to be critical of the chassis, looking at these data;
1) Braking much earlier than the Merc in T1 and lacking in entry and apex speed. Downforce helps in the braking zones. I saw the same thing in China in the big braking zone after the long back straight.
You see this repeatedly in the entry to turns 4, 5 and 7, although Alonso is able to brake as late as Hamilton here.
2) Turn 8/9 is a big one for me, as Hamilton wasn't even the quickest through there (Bottas was quicker). Even so, there's a clear gap in performance there. I don't believe they're really compromising the wing levels, but it would be difficult to believe that more power would entail better performance through T9.
3) Turn 10 is good, but still lacking a couple of clicks in apex speed.
4) Getting into the meat of Sector 3, T12 is pretty bad, Turn 13 just about alright, but you really see Alonso sacrificing some apex speed in T14 for that T15 exit which is matching the Merc. Probably only Alonso/Hamilton got those corners right of the Q3 runners.
It's difficult to conclude that they'll be immediately at the sharp end given Merc power, which would be why Merc are probably entertaining a customer deal, keeping in mind they refused a customer deal with RBR last year. I bet they desperately want one of their customers to take points off Ferrari and McLaren would be in that range given some further development.
In Montreal the corners don't go on for long, and it's more about quick direction changes and carrying speed, a lot less 'classical' corners, even so I'd be surprised to see the McLaren matching the Merc in the slow corners.
The problem I see with Honda is that they entered the sport out of sync with the regulation change, so they don't have the luxury of having to learn and adapt at the same pace as the others, complicated by the fact that they were a bit rusty as they'd been out of the sport for a good number of years.
A further problem is that Ferrari have shown that you don't need to copy the Merc layout to produce as good power as the Merc. While Honda started out with this philosophy in furrowing their own path, they've decided this year to copy the most difficult part of the Merc unit to get right (with the split design).
It is well known that even with Merc's development time and resources they'd had difficulty with this. Now Honda have decided to copy that with about 10 minutes of development. Que lots of vibration and blown up engines. Who'd have thought.
I think it's a good thing that Honda didn't bring the rumoured update at Canada. Better to give it more development time and put something on track with good reliability. The step in power will come, if the reliability is sorted. It might be too late for McLaren though...which is a shame.
Is there not a trace on the graph which depicts Alonso/Hamilton=Faster/Slower?I think the car is working the tyres well and they're not having as much a difficulty as the Merc to dial the car in circuit to circuit.
Someone smarter than I, has managed to extract the GPS data from the Spanish GP qualifying (Hamilton vs Alonso):
I'm a McLaren fan, but if I were to be critical of the chassis, looking at these data;
1) Braking much earlier than the Merc in T1 and lacking in entry and apex speed. Downforce helps in the braking zones. I saw the same thing in China in the big braking zone after the long back straight.
You see this repeatedly in the entry to turns 4, 5 and 7, although Alonso is able to brake as late as Hamilton here.
2) Turn 8/9 is a big one for me, as Hamilton wasn't even the quickest through there (Bottas was quicker). Even so, there's a clear gap in performance there. I don't believe they're really compromising the wing levels, but it would be difficult to believe that more power would entail better performance through T9.
3) Turn 10 is good, but still lacking a couple of clicks in apex speed.
4) Getting into the meat of Sector 3, T12 is pretty bad, Turn 13 just about alright, but you really see Alonso sacrificing some apex speed in T14 for that T15 exit which is matching the Merc. Probably only Alonso/Hamilton got those corners right of the Q3 runners.
It's difficult to conclude that they'll be immediately at the sharp end given Merc power, which would be why Merc are probably entertaining a customer deal, keeping in mind they refused a customer deal with RBR last year. I bet they desperately want one of their customers to take points off Ferrari and McLaren would be in that range given some further development.
In Montreal the corners don't go on for long, and it's more about quick direction changes and carrying speed, a lot less 'classical' corners, even so I'd be surprised to see the McLaren matching the Merc in the slow corners.
The problem I see with Honda is that they entered the sport out of sync with the regulation change, so they don't have the luxury of having to learn and adapt at the same pace as the others, complicated by the fact that they were a bit rusty as they'd been out of the sport for a good number of years.
A further problem is that Ferrari have shown that you don't need to copy the Merc layout to produce as good power as the Merc. While Honda started out with this philosophy in furrowing their own path, they've decided this year to copy the most difficult part of the Merc unit to get right (with the split design).
It is well known that even with Merc's development time and resources they'd had difficulty with this. Now Honda have decided to copy that with about 10 minutes of development. Que lots of vibration and blown up engines. Who'd have thought.
I think it's a good thing that Honda didn't bring the rumoured update at Canada. Better to give it more development time and put something on track with good reliability. The step in power will come, if the reliability is sorted. It might be too late for McLaren though...which is a shame.
Edited by Dr Z on Monday 12th June 13:23
To this observer, there is a constant delta increase in Ham's advantage, but in the corners the rate of delta increase is smaller, as seen by the upward blips in the trace.
jsf said:
Dr Z said:
jsf said:
They will be maximising the overall lap time by running the appropriate down force/drag to achieve that, just like all the teams do.
That will naturally mean they will be lighter on down force than they could be with more power available. It's pretty basic stuff.
I know the basics, but given how all cars are being balanced due to extra drag in this year's cars, you don't know that they have extra downforce they can add, if they have an increase in power? That's just speculation.That will naturally mean they will be lighter on down force than they could be with more power available. It's pretty basic stuff.
If they were being compromised, I'd bet we'd have heard about it in the press given how much it was talked about last year.
stevesingo said:
Is there not a trace on the graph which depicts Alonso/Hamilton=Faster/Slower?
To this observer, there is a constant delta increase in Ham's advantage, but in the corners the rate of delta increase is smaller, as seen by the upward blips in the trace.
Maybe I should give it a go in extracting this info, as the delta and the trace don't quite match up. I'm not sure I trust that over the trace.To this observer, there is a constant delta increase in Ham's advantage, but in the corners the rate of delta increase is smaller, as seen by the upward blips in the trace.
MissChief said:
I suspect McLaren are trimming their cars lighter on downforce in order to be slightly more competitive on the straights. That would explain a lot fo that trace IMO.
I would too, but the problem with low downforce levels is longer braking zones, and lower apex speeds, meaning you can't keep up momentum and need to lean on the engine's power more, which isn't a strong point for Honda.I suspect the lower apex speeds are something else, it could be a trimmed out wing, it could be something like the weird re-gen affecting the brakes/diff on corner entry.. There's plenty of probable reasons, most of which point at the engine/hydrid system.
Dr Z said:
jsf said:
Dr Z said:
jsf said:
They will be maximising the overall lap time by running the appropriate down force/drag to achieve that, just like all the teams do.
That will naturally mean they will be lighter on down force than they could be with more power available. It's pretty basic stuff.
I know the basics, but given how all cars are being balanced due to extra drag in this year's cars, you don't know that they have extra downforce they can add, if they have an increase in power? That's just speculation.That will naturally mean they will be lighter on down force than they could be with more power available. It's pretty basic stuff.
If they were being compromised, I'd bet we'd have heard about it in the press given how much it was talked about last year.
stevesingo said:
Is there not a trace on the graph which depicts Alonso/Hamilton=Faster/Slower?
To this observer, there is a constant delta increase in Ham's advantage, but in the corners the rate of delta increase is smaller, as seen by the upward blips in the trace.
Maybe I should give it a go in extracting this info, as the delta and the trace don't quite match up. I'm not sure I trust that over the trace.To this observer, there is a constant delta increase in Ham's advantage, but in the corners the rate of delta increase is smaller, as seen by the upward blips in the trace.
jsf said:
I don't see how you cant understand what I am telling you, its absolute basics in trimming out a car to maximise lap time. If you have more power available or if you have more powertrain efficiency (Honda is down on both fronts) you can run more down force whilst attaining the best trim for lap time than you could with less power/efficiency.
That's the point of contention really. You're assuming that the McLaren is trimmed out due to lack of power, I'm disputing that. It's hard to prove either way because we've only got one team running the Honda.Dr Z said:
jsf said:
I don't see how you cant understand what I am telling you, its absolute basics in trimming out a car to maximise lap time. If you have more power available or if you have more powertrain efficiency (Honda is down on both fronts) you can run more down force whilst attaining the best trim for lap time than you could with less power/efficiency.
That's the point of contention really. You're assuming that the McLaren is trimmed out due to lack of power, I'm disputing that. It's hard to prove either way because we've only got one team running the Honda.Doink said:
HustleRussell said:
Vaud said:
Doink said:
Deal close to being announced and its going to cost McClaren £78m to split from Honda
Source?But is the Daily Mail a credible source? Is this a certainty or are we simply seeing Mclaren explore their plan 'B'?
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