Steve Nichols MP4/4 interview

[Hoffman900]

Did i catch it correctly when he says that the infamous 1990 Portuguese GP in Estoril start - when Mansell drove into Prost letting the two McLaren to lead the race - was actually caused by the paranoia of Nigel and the consequent choice to not mount the so-called traction control system they were testing at the time and approved by Alain?

Yes, he refused to use "screw the Nigel button".

That was one of the best parts

Classic Nigel

[Edax]

It's an interesting interview, but does anyone really think the technical bosses at F1 teams are drafting the whole car?! The whole thing is a bit sad, seems like the clique formed at McLaren who didn't want oversight and resented Murray being hired. Murray obviously had more of an oversight role, but is the one assigning staff and signing things off.

I think this is all a response to this:https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... -interview
and this rebuttal: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arti ... 4-4-claims

It's all pretty damning for Gordon, who always came across as bit pompous to me. It's one thing to claim "well I was the technical director and our team designed it" vs. perpetuating some myth that he was this design genius who basically came in and threw out what Mclaren had been doing and showed them the way. Gordon's story can't be corroborated by anyone. The Mclaren technical team letter from that period was pretty eye opening.

Ian Bamsey shouldn't get a pass on this either. I suspect Steve being American (as opposed to being British) had something to do with that

I have the same feeling with Murray. But I also don’t get a good vibe with Nichols.

It is pretty obvious from the N1A website that he is (also) trying to monetize his work on the Mp4/4. The site shows 4/5 pictures of the mp4/4 plus a backstory. Interestingly enough there is not a single picture of the original M1A of which it is a modern replica.

Instead of paying hommage to bruce Mclaren and his team for creating what I think is one of the best looking car contours out there you get these kind of quotes.

compare the elegant simplicity of the MP4-4 with the visual presence of the Nichols N1A, and its not hard to see the hand of the same designer at work.

https://nichols-cars.com/

I guess it is easy to see why they did not like each other at Mclaren. They are too much alike. Luckily there appeared to have been some pretty good engineers around to design and build the actual car.

[Jolle]

I always wondered about Murray’s time at McLaren. He was there a long time (close to 20 years), even when they went into a nosedive during the mid nineties when Honda, Nichols and Senna left. I would presume then, after finishing the F1 in 92-ish, you would return to the project that is needing of some help. But they only returned to form with the hire of Newey (who left around the same time as Murray).

[AngusF1]

Having seen both sides in a technical industry:

The team lead / director will set the concept, theme, standards and direction of the work, determine which areas to investigate and optimise, and keep the team on track with their work. Consequently he will feel like the design is his, and without his inspired direction the team would have floundered on the wrong concepts.

The engineers performing the detailed design will take the concept and design direction without much appreciating the expertise that went into it, feeling that it was obvious. They will do 95% of the man hours on the detailed design and think of many clever ideas. Consequently they will feel like the design is theirs because they did all the “work”.

Also note, both men are selling cars through professional marketing teams who no doubt insisted on providing their product with historical pedigree and prestige.

[jjn9128]

Having seen both sides in a technical industry:

The team lead / director will set the concept, theme, standards and direction of the work, determine which areas to investigate and optimise, and keep the team on track with their work. Consequently he will feel like the design is his, and without his inspired direction the team would have floundered on the wrong concepts.

The engineers performing the detailed design will take the concept and design direction without much appreciating the expertise that went into it, feeling that it was obvious. They will do 95% of the man hours on the detailed design and think of many clever ideas. Consequently they will feel like the design is theirs because they did all the “work”.

Also note, both men are selling cars through professional marketing teams who no doubt insisted on providing their product with historical pedigree and prestige.

This is the best summation of this petty argument I’ve seen!

[Mat-tes]

I'll tend to agree with the reality being somewhere in-between both sides.
This video works as a good companion piece to fill in some parts:


If the story from Honda is to be correct and Murray asked for the engine to be packaged smaller, it has to be put into perceptive to what Nichols seams to be saying that the packaging of the mp4/4 was guided by the smaller size of the Honda engine.
Nichols downplays Murray's involvements but if a smaller engine = mp4/4 then the story side of Murray works, that he brought in his packaging mindset to McLaren and was more involved than just showing off.
Both looked to have been involved in parts that ended playing to the others strength, the base mp4/3 was a much better base than the Brabham but Murray's idea of packaging was better than McLaren's i.e smaller and lower profile/packaging, leaning driver.
This is kind of like a macro vs micro point of view where both sides did an equal amount of design work without crediting enough the other.

That interview isn't very dramatic and I like that about it but you clearly see there is not much spared love between the two men, but ending the video by saying "make the truth known"... that sounds a bit one sided for me.

Murray likes tooting his own horn but that's not really a surprise if you've been looking at his communication material for the t50, I'd say all great men of F1 have the same show off quality and Nichols might have been too conservative on that side.

Interestingly, this relationship at McLaren sounds like the British Leyland mindset to mistrust outsider and only believe the way you do things is the way to go, an us versus them situation. Adrian Newey explained in his book he faced similar resistance when he moved into RedBull (Williams as well if I remember correctly), and Nichols clearly says he didn't want a new guy to come in after Barnard left.

[Rodak]

Yeah you're probably right. I kinda like the Murray philosophy of "add lightness" so maybe I'm biased.

Ummm, that was Colin Chapman of Lotus who said that. Nichols' comment about Murray telling Proust to move his head to unblock the air intake for an extra 200 revs is telling, as Nichols explains, since there wasn't an intake to unblock....

The long interview is well worth watching.

[jjn9128]

Yeah you're probably right. I kinda like the Murray philosophy of "add lightness" so maybe I'm biased.

Ummm, that was Colin Chapman of Lotus who said that. Nichols' comment about Murray telling Proust to move his head to unblock the air intake for an extra 200 revs is telling, as Nichols explains, since there wasn't an intake to unblock....

The long interview is well worth watching.

Yeah. But Murray did it with safety.

[Hoffman900]

Yeah you're probably right. I kinda like the Murray philosophy of "add lightness" so maybe I'm biased.

Ummm, that was Colin Chapman of Lotus who said that. Nichols' comment about Murray telling Proust to move his head to unblock the air intake for an extra 200 revs is telling, as Nichols explains, since there wasn't an intake to unblock....

The long interview is well worth watching.

Yeah. But Murray did it with safety.

Safety relative to what?

As I mentioned before, the Ferrari stuff is more interesting and “juicy” than the Mclaren MP4/4 stuff. Worth a listen to those parts for those who haven’t.

[TEHNOS]

Ummm, that was Colin Chapman of Lotus who said that. Nichols' comment about Murray telling Proust to move his head to unblock the air intake for an extra 200 revs is telling, as Nichols explains, since there wasn't an intake to unblock....

The long interview is well worth watching.

Yeah. But Murray did it with safety.

Safety relative to what?

As I mentioned before, the Ferrari stuff is more interesting and “juicy” than the Mclaren MP4/4 stuff. Worth a listen to those parts for those who haven’t.

But still hasn't sheed a light on 1991 Ferrari meltdown happenings, if that is even possible.