Mclaren Mercedes 2014

[mclaren_mircea]

Given that McLaren are running Mercedes engines then this chassis must be exceptionally bad.

Totally agree. Sadly the performance is the same likw last year's car. If Lotus would have not have the financial problems and the staff loss, Mclaren would be after Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, Williams, Force India, and Lotus.

[bauc]

Given that McLaren are running Mercedes engines then this chassis must be exceptionally bad.

Totally agree. Sadly the performance is the same likw last year's car. If Lotus would have not have the financial problems and the staff loss, Mclaren would be after Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, Williams, Force India, and Lotus.

If the planned upgrade for the Spain does not put Mclaren back in the fight behind Mercedes or at least move them closer then the most reasonable way is to ditch this season's car (Yes I know its too early) and start working on with Honda to create the best possible chassis that will be well integrated with the engine just like Mercedes had done.

[rifrafs2kees]

I hope for their own sake they plan on designing a CAR next year...not another gimmick. Redbull has shown time and time again that a cohesive design wins. F1 tech is so saturated these days, the chance of coming up with a silver bullet is very diminished. And when it happens, it's easily copied in 3 races. The car as a whole stinks as soon as you begin to analyse how the individual parts work together.

[Gaz.]

Honda left the sport because they weren't winning, despite having one of the biggest budgets around. That is the plain and simple fact. Another team that left because they weren't winning was BMW. Toyota did the same thing.

They also couldn't justify spending upwards of $300m per year to their unions while making redundancies, lay offs, shorter working weeks, pay freezes & cuts etc. BMW had announced they were making 8100 redundancies in February 2009, Toyota made a number of voluntary redundancies in late 2008 and agreed the pay freeze. Honda went even further and shut some factories for four months with staff on 60% pay for two months and returning on less money than before.

Would they have all stuck around if they were winning trophies every other Sunday? Toyota may have but I'm not so sure about Honda or BMW as I don't think their unions would have allowed it.

[akshat21]

Honda left the sport because they weren't winning, despite having one of the biggest budgets around. That is the plain and simple fact. Another team that left because they weren't winning was BMW. Toyota did the same thing.

They also couldn't justify spending upwards of $300m per year to their unions while making redundancies, lay offs, shorter working weeks, pay freezes & cuts etc. BMW had announced they were making 8100 redundancies in February 2009, Toyota made a number of voluntary redundancies in late 2008 and agreed the pay freeze. Honda went even further and shut some factories for four months with staff on 60% pay for two months and returning on less money than before.

Would they have all stuck around if they were winning trophies every other Sunday? Toyota may have but I'm not so sure about Honda or BMW as I don't think their unions would have allowed it.

The Manufactuers that stayed, that is, Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault, were also facing difficulties during the same time. Renault are still cutting their workforce. (7500 by 2016). By contrast, BMW actually managed to hold on to profits during the same time.

While I agree that it would become more difficult to explain to the unions that they are spending more money in F1 when they are cutting workforce, it still will be explainable if you were winning, as then you can justify it as a worthwhile R&D and Marketing expense.

If the other manufacturers had won trophies "every other sunday", and maybe a few championships between them and the chances of them staying would be much higher.

Also, remember that F1 brings in a lot of indirect marketing as well, such as print, electronic and tv media coverage. This coverage will generally focus on teams that are winning. Case in point, you will find a lot more articles on Red Bull, and Mercedes this year than for McLaren or Williams or Caterham. Last year, it was Red Bull and the year before, Red Bull and McLaren. (I purposely exclude Ferrari from this list because Ferrari is synonymous with F1). When you are spending upwards of 300m, you want the direct and indirect benefits from investment. And by not winning, you are getting neither.

[Edax]

Given that McLaren are running Mercedes engines then this chassis must be exceptionally bad.

Totally agree. Sadly the performance is the same likw last year's car. If Lotus would have not have the financial problems and the staff loss, Mclaren would be after Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, Williams, Force India, and Lotus.

If the planned upgrade for the Spain does not put Mclaren back in the fight behind Mercedes or at least move them closer than the most reasonable way is to ditch this season's car (Yes I know its too early) and start working on with Honda to create the best possible chassis that will be well integrated with the engine just like Mercedes had done.

It's not like they went out to deliberately make the worst possible design for this year. Who says that a new chassis will turn out to be better?

It is always tempting to go for a blank sheet design. But if the problem is in the design process, then this will not help. Clearly there is a discrepancy between what performance is predicted from design, and real on-track performance. Until that correlation is resolved, every car they design has the risk of turning out to be a lemon.

I think they have to spend their resources trying to develop this car and figure out what is going on. Only once they are capable of fixing issues on this car they can think about moving to a next design.

[Richard]

It is always tempting to go for a blank sheet design. But if the problem is in the design process, then this will not help. Clearly there is a discrepancy between what performance is predicted from design, and real on-track performance. Until that correlation is resolved, every car they design has the risk of turning out to be a lemon.

Their problem is that they seem obsessed with blank sheet design every season since 2009 - parachute suspension, pull rod, good car with coanda ( otherwise looked very conventional), U pods with exhaust in floor, F duct, biggest diffuser in history. The two years before that had 2 conventional looking cars which were easily the best on track.

Meanwhile, RB have gone for iterative design with a car without gimmicks. OK the EBD was a gimmick, but it was an evolved gimmick rather than here one season gone the next.

Maybe I'm being a little selective, but the point is that no other teams seems so gimmicky. The nearest comparisons are the Lotus front exhaust and Ferrari pull rod. Lotus reverted to gimmick free convention and went faster while Ferrari stuck with evolution.

[Gaz.]

The Manufactuers that stayed, that is, Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault, were also facing difficulties during the same time. Renault are still cutting their workforce. (7500 by 2016). By contrast, BMW actually managed to hold on to profits during the same time.

While I agree that it would become more difficult to explain to the unions that they are spending more money in F1 when they are cutting workforce, it still will be explainable if you were winning, as then you can justify it as a worthwhile R&D and Marketing expense.

If the other manufacturers had won trophies "every other sunday", and maybe a few championships between them and the chances of them staying would be much higher.

Also, remember that F1 brings in a lot of indirect marketing as well, such as print, electronic and tv media coverage. This coverage will generally focus on teams that are winning. Case in point, you will find a lot more articles on Red Bull, and Mercedes this year than for McLaren or Williams or Caterham. Last year, it was Red Bull and the year before, Red Bull and McLaren. (I purposely exclude Ferrari from this list because Ferrari is synonymous with F1). When you are spending upwards of 300m, you want the direct and indirect benefits from investment. And by not winning, you are getting neither.

Agree completely.

[FoxHound]

And a spin off of their bad results will be lower marketing value for sponsors.
The light at the end of this tunnel is Honda.

[mclaren_mircea]

And a spin off of their bad results will be lower marketing value for sponsors.
The light at the end of this tunnel is Honda.

But Honda will be 1 year behind Mercedes for example. Mercedes is testing with 4 teams while Honda made it clear that they won't test and they will rely on the dyno and huge amounts of money on R&D, but said several times NO REAL TESTING

[FoxHound]

Full manufacturer backing, not paying for engines, and Honda's pedigree are all benefits in kind to mclaren.
I believe Honda are also putting money in the pot.

Mclaren hit the jackpot if you look at what is happening to them now.

[Thunder]

Pretty disheartening Race. Fighting with the Toro Rosso can't be the Goal.

Jenson saying they*re maxed out on Front Wing is really strange. They ditched the 28 quite early last Season and just now get to develop the Performance Upgrades...? What held them back for so long?

I agree they need to get rid of all the Gimmicks. RB and Merc show that an honest, well developed conventional Car is the way to go.

I was pretty optimistic for this Weekend and now hope for the Barcelona Update to be really good, else this will be another tough Season.

[langwadt]

Full manufacturer backing, not paying for engines, and Honda's pedigree are all benefits in kind to mclaren.
I believe Honda are also putting money in the pot.

Mclaren hit the jackpot if you look at what is happening to them now.

from what I've read it's free engines, 50mill euro and half the drivers pay

[KingHamilton01]

I always expected 2014 to be a testing season for McLaren, I to agree with what other's are saying that it won't be until 2015 when McLaren enter with Honda engines till they can expect to become a force again. I think Honda already have a great knowledge of v6 engines with turbo's from indy car's, plus McLaren will already know some of the secret's or the Mercedes engine so this will all help Honda make a good package imo. Meanwhile they have blooded a young driver in Magnussen who will need a season to get up to speed and I honestly think that Button won't be going into 2015 with McLaren, I don't know what sort of contract Hulkenburg has at FI but I think McLaren should look at him.

[langwadt]

Given that McLaren are running Mercedes engines then this chassis must be exceptionally bad.

Totally agree. Sadly the performance is the same likw last year's car. If Lotus would have not have the financial problems and the staff loss, Mclaren would be after Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, Williams, Force India, and Lotus.

If the planned upgrade for the Spain does not put Mclaren back in the fight behind Mercedes or at least move them closer then the most reasonable way is to ditch this season's car (Yes I know its too early) and start working on with Honda to create the best possible chassis that will be well integrated with the engine just like Mercedes had done.

I read that Kevin said that they just couldn't get the front end to work and the going to to Europe wouldn't change that