Soichiro wrote:Hi everyone,
I am new here. I've been following you for a while and decided to join in.
There are some tech guys here that might know the answer. This race has raised a question - to me at least - is it really only on Honda to do the homework (clearly they lack power)? This is not a high power demanding circuit and the top speed traps were there with the Renault powered cars (faster in some and slower in others - but se sre talking small differences 1-1.5 kph) although Renault isn't much better than Honda, the difference to Red Bulls was HUGE! At moments, by the end of the race RB was lapping 3+ sec. Faster than Alonso and also set the fastest time. Also in qualy they were 1.5sec faster - I believe that is something McLaren should take a look into as to me it seems McLaren isn't that great eather.
Maybe someone can give a better explanation. Thank you.
Specifically for this circuit the downforce is more important than the power. I guess that Ferrari, RedBull and Mercedes were running with more downforce than the client teams because the client teams have drive train losses, and they try to compensate with lower downforces. On circuits with more and long straights this is reasonable but when you are on slow circuit this is not good. McLarren have lowest available power but obviously they have good balance and low car frontal area that makes sense to run with higher downforce to compensate the lack of power. On Hungaroring and Monaco this works, on other circuits they are helpless. About yesterday I guess that RedBull had a little bit more power, too. Mercedes did a mess with tires and the strategy.