Discussion
Taking a very very simplistic approach, my opinion is...
McLaren had a flawed approach to aerodynamics, chasing maximum theoretical performance over achievable performance. When this didn't work Ron became convinced the issue was being given a 'customer' engine rather than a works one and that you couldn't win without a works one, meaning the deal with Honda was done. These two things, coming one after the other, with some overlap, have managed to create a fairly spectacular barren run.
With maximum respect to Ron for his achievements (off as well as on the field of play), the appearance from the outside is that he became more and more intransigent and less and less aware of the problem it caused.
Like Bernie, he had a shelf life, it came to and end, and nobody had told him.
McLaren had a flawed approach to aerodynamics, chasing maximum theoretical performance over achievable performance. When this didn't work Ron became convinced the issue was being given a 'customer' engine rather than a works one and that you couldn't win without a works one, meaning the deal with Honda was done. These two things, coming one after the other, with some overlap, have managed to create a fairly spectacular barren run.
With maximum respect to Ron for his achievements (off as well as on the field of play), the appearance from the outside is that he became more and more intransigent and less and less aware of the problem it caused.
Like Bernie, he had a shelf life, it came to and end, and nobody had told him.
StevieBee said:
I really don't think it fair to peg the (hopefully, temporary) demise of McLaren to Whitmarsh. There were a couple of years of perfect storm combining the spy gate issue, lying to officials, Alonso / Hamilton and the personal issues with the RD/MO/RD's OH triangle and others. IIRC, the unwelcome inputs from Hamilton Snr didn't help matters either. All things considered, Whitmarsh was the little curly bit on the top of a large and fast-festering turd.
I haven't said anything of the sort, what I said was:tankplanker said:
I'd put money on Whitmarsh being thrown into the lake at the technology centre complete with concrete boots as much because he didn't deliver as he cost the team Lewis. I am sure if the team had carried on focusing on Lewis he would have stayed on.
In other words I said he was sacked for not delivering not that he was sacked for ruining McLaren. At the start of his tenure he would have been targeted with winning world titles, they clearly failed to do that with some major f
k ups both on a technical level and on a driver management level. That alone is enough of a reason for any team principle to be binned (he wouldn't have had anywhere near the same amount of time at Ferrari before being sacked), I stand by losing Lewis who has only become a better racer since then as one of Whitmarsh's biggest driver management fk ups.janesmith1950 said:
Taking a very very simplistic approach, my opinion is...
McLaren had a flawed approach to aerodynamics, chasing maximum theoretical performance over achievable performance. When this didn't work Ron became convinced the issue was being given a 'customer' engine rather than a works one and that you couldn't win without a works one, meaning the deal with Honda was done. These two things, coming one after the other, with some overlap, have managed to create a fairly spectacular barren run.
With maximum respect to Ron for his achievements (off as well as on the field of play), the appearance from the outside is that he became more and more intransigent and less and less aware of the problem it caused.
Like Bernie, he had a shelf life, it came to and end, and nobody had told him.
Looking back at the low downforce concept that Williams ran with the Merc engine that was still slower than the Merc on the power focused circuits, especially in qualifying as the customer teams did not have all the engine modes, I still think McLaren were right to change supplier. They were never going to beat Mercedes with the same engine with that restriction, and McLaren aren't in F1 to finish at best 2nd.McLaren had a flawed approach to aerodynamics, chasing maximum theoretical performance over achievable performance. When this didn't work Ron became convinced the issue was being given a 'customer' engine rather than a works one and that you couldn't win without a works one, meaning the deal with Honda was done. These two things, coming one after the other, with some overlap, have managed to create a fairly spectacular barren run.
With maximum respect to Ron for his achievements (off as well as on the field of play), the appearance from the outside is that he became more and more intransigent and less and less aware of the problem it caused.
Like Bernie, he had a shelf life, it came to and end, and nobody had told him.
Honda clearly wasn't the best choice, but who else was there? At that point Red Bull hadn't pissed off Renault enough for them to dump Red Bull, Ferrari would never have supplied McLaren unless the engine was a year old, totally useless for Sauber let alone McLaren. If McLaren could have delayed a year while Honda worked on the engine and managed to get a suitable test mule in place, who knows, it might have worked, can't have been any worse.
Completely agree about Ron, he was finished in 2009 with the 2009 Oz GP and should have stuck to the road car side of the business.
London424 said:
Merc customer cars have always had access to the same engine modes as the factory team...I'm not sure where you are getting your info from?
I think you are right. I based my comments on the complaints from Massa at the time about what turns out Merc call the phase documents that state how long and hard a team can run a particular engine, that Merc were allowing the works team to run harder for longer. That and the qualifying times for the power focused circuits around Williams vs. Mercs timings. The Williams was fundamentally setup for low downforce from its inception, yet it was still out qualified by the (more balanced design) Merc by 1/2 second, with the same engine. McLaren who were also using the same engine were more than 1.2 seconds down on Lewis's pole. As been mentioned a few time already the McLaren has been focused on max. downforce. I'd have expected the the Merc to be split by the Williams at this circuit that year, Williams were mighty fast that year on the right circuits.
I remember reading a story somewhere about the Merc engineers releasing the works wrong maps to the Force India guys in one of the practice sessions. Cue, lots of head scratching by the FI engineers about why their car is so quick suddenly, and lots of frantic activity among the Merc engineers to restore the customer correct maps to the cars. Next session, the natural order was restored, to the relief of some of the Merc engine people embedded within FI.
Could be bks. 
Could be b
ks. Gaz. said:
Williams and Force India, and Andy Cowel for that matter have said until they are blue in the face that they get everything the same as Mercedes. It's cheaper and easier to make one spec for three or four teams for a start and secondly it helps Williams and Force India nick points from Ferrari and Red Bull. Ron wanted Mclaren write the engine maps themselves, thinking they could do better than Mercedes, Merc understandably said 'not a chance'. The engine deal was £26m whether they used 11 engines or 100 so why would Mercedes effectively fund Mclaren's experiments as they blow up engines on rigs?
I can sort of see were McLaren were coming with wanting to do their own maps as at that point McLaren used ExxonMobil fuels, while Merc developed the engine and its maps for Petronas. It is logical to want to remap the engine to suit your own fuel. However were it becomes a proper f
k up for McLaren is that this should not have been late breaking news that Merc were not happy to support this, they had the specs of the engine and more importantly the working arrangements set by Merc way in advance of even receiving any actual engines. It isn't even like it was a new relationship with ExxonMobil.I wonder who was in charge of McLaren during this period?
tankplanker said:
StevieBee said:
I really don't think it fair to peg the (hopefully, temporary) demise of McLaren to Whitmarsh. There were a couple of years of perfect storm combining the spy gate issue, lying to officials, Alonso / Hamilton and the personal issues with the RD/MO/RD's OH triangle and others. IIRC, the unwelcome inputs from Hamilton Snr didn't help matters either. All things considered, Whitmarsh was the little curly bit on the top of a large and fast-festering turd.
I haven't said anything of the sort, what I said was:tankplanker said:
I'd put money on Whitmarsh being thrown into the lake at the technology centre complete with concrete boots as much because he didn't deliver as he cost the team Lewis. I am sure if the team had carried on focusing on Lewis he would have stayed on.
In other words I said he was sacked for not delivering not that he was sacked for ruining McLaren. At the start of his tenure he would have been targeted with winning world titles, they clearly failed to do that with some major fk ups both on a technical level and on a driver management level. That alone is enough of a reason for any team principle to be binned (he wouldn't have had anywhere near the same amount of time at Ferrari before being sacked), I stand by losing Lewis who has only become a better racer since then as one of Whitmarsh's biggest driver management fk ups.They were starting to come on strong in the back end of 2009 after the distaster of a start to the year when the car was the best part of 1.5 seconds a lap off pace (equivalent to a hybrid era Force India if you like).
Refuelling was banned after that year, so there was a bit of a reset, but still the team managed the 3rd quickest car over the season, but the form was fluid enough that on some weekends they were genuinely the fastest. Having the most powerful engine in the field and F- duct helped.
Big change again in 2011 with the different tyre supplier, full on DRS and the exhaust blowing taking off. Hot blowing vs cold blowing, when the FIA banned it, Renault who were using cold blowing argued on reliability grounds to give them more leeway, which was accepted by the FIA. I think it hurt McLaren quite a bit, as again they had a pretty strong finish in the back end of 2011, and finally turning up with the quickest car out of the blocks in 2012.
But, horror of horrors, for half a season nobody had a clue how the tyres worked. What good is having all that performance, if you can't make your tyres work? You're history! You turn up at a circuit and it's pot luck if you can get your tyres working all through the weekend. Pretty woeful pit stop performance did not help too, and may be you can blame Whitmarsh for that but they put in new processes in place and by mid season they sorted that. But no body still had much of a clue about the tyres. IMO, ultimately it boiled down to that, and the various mechanical DNFs that meant it was Vettel and Alonso fighting for the WDC than Hamilton and Button. The fact that Hamilton was still in the mix late into the year for the WDC should suggest Button hadn't made it his team. Sorry, I don't buy that narrative.
6 non scoring weekends for the McLaren drivers vs 2/3 for Alonso/Vettel. By mid season I thought McLaren were starting to get a grip but really, terrible mechanical reliability was like a close friend throughout the year for both drivers. How much of the bad mechanical reliability can be put down to the management of Whitmarsh? I'm not sure if McLaren had always done the revolution thing as opposed to the evolution thing, in terms of car design every year. Probably a remnant of the Dennis era management, which carried on in to the Whitmarsh era.
As for losing Hamilton. He was pretty fed up by the end of 2011 (due his own performance), but turned up a renewed man in 2012 but I think he'd made up his mind by mid way. In any case, if he had stayed, the sulking in the last few years would have been unbearable. It was good for him that he left.
As an aside, Alonso's two non-finishes in 2012 were due to collisions with other drivers. Grosjean accounts for one, and the other was him trying put the squeeze on Raikkonen. I wonder if Alonso thinks back about that DNF in Suzuka.
Edited by Dr Z on Wednesday 18th October 16:40
Selection of Lewis vs Seb over the years:
Lausitzring F3 Euro 2005
Chinese GP 2010
German GP 2012 cheeky
US GP 2012
Belgian GP 2013
Spanish GP 2017
Lausitzring F3 Euro 2005
Chinese GP 2010
German GP 2012 cheeky
US GP 2012
Belgian GP 2013
Spanish GP 2017
Dr Z said:
Selection of Lewis vs Seb over the years:
Lausitzring F3 Euro 2005
Chinese GP 2010
German GP 2012 cheeky
US GP 2012
Belgian GP 2013
Spanish GP 2017
The cheeky one is an example of why so many people cannot respect vettel. Flailing his arms about at the injustice of being legitimately overtaken. He really is a tool in the car. Lausitzring F3 Euro 2005
Chinese GP 2010
German GP 2012 cheeky
US GP 2012
Belgian GP 2013
Spanish GP 2017
LDN said:
The cheeky one is an example of why so many people cannot respect vettel. Flailing his arms about at the injustice of being legitimately overtaken. He really is a tool in the car.
Love "the cheeky one"! That, and the single finger nonsense, just sums up why I went right off Vettel!
He seems to think everybody else on the circuit should just get out of his way, and if they don't he seems quite happy to have a crash then try to blame anyone else he can think of!
Didn't we have a German multiple title winner like that before? Anyone know how I can ask Damon Hill?
I also rated him to start with!
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