Mclaren MP4-30 Honda

[Wazari]

I don't want to start a war among posters. I was just trying to maybe shed some insight as to the path of the current Honda PU without getting anyone inside of Honda in any hot water, which BTW is pretty easy to do. So let's say we are purely speaking in hypotheticals;

Sometime in late 2012, a British manufacturing firm contacts a Japanese automaker about the possibility of re-entering the F1 arena as an exclusive engine supplier for their F1 team. The Japanese say how much and how soon? The teams says probably at the start of 2016, but let's discuss details soon. Many meetings but nothing ironed out. Engine manufacturer dedicates small amount of staff to start broad concept layout of this PU. They soon hear from above, move forward, it looks like it's going to happen. By now it's Q3 - Q4 of 2013 and the plan is to start racing in 2016. They are going to build this PU with a radial turbine at the rear of the motor with a higher and longer footprint than the ultimate design. Japanese executive(s) so eager to please and get back to "glory days" of F1 says no problem to British team when they announce they are going to terminate contract with current engine supplier at the end of 2014. Oh crap.....More crap; now year end of 2013, British team says we are revamping aero package and chassis with a strict size requirement. The current design won't fit..........Nani kore??(What the.....) Sorry folks, the saga continues, I have to run.

Of course this is all fictional.........

This means Honda started the Hybrid V6 turbo project in 2012 (and started racing in 2015)? so where is the problem? Renault and maybe Ferrari started their project in 2011 and begun racing it in 2014. There is no (big) difference between them... The others had a V8 project running in the same time though...

No they really didn't start their project in 2012. They were initially approached in 2012. They didn't even know they were actually entering the F1 arena until 2013 and that their initial concept isn't going to work in the 4-30 chassis. Now it's the end of 2013. So in reality, they went from final design to their first race in less than 20 months; not 36 to 48 months like the others.

[nanocustic]

On motorsport.com:

Honda has been at pains all season to defend the performance of its engine, and suggests that a lot of the laptime deficit is down to deficiencies in the chassis.

Fernando Alonso pointedly had a few remarks suggesting otherwise at Monza when, after qualifying, he said that power was the key problem.

"It's a track with six corners – on the GPS we lose two or three tenths in those six corners," he explained.

"The rest of the three seconds, we lose on the straights. We are on full-throttle with the steering wheel straight."

While getting access to McLaren's GPS data is impossible – meaning we cannot prove or disprove Alonso's remarks – one rival team did offer Motorsport.com some insight about where it thinks its Woking rival stacks up.

According to its data from the Belgian GP, it appears that the McLaren could be as good as the fourth quickest chassis overall through corners, beaten only by the Mercedes, Red Bull and Toro Rosso.

Having crunched the numbers and compared the McLaren to a Mercedes on a quick practice lap, some interesting figures emerged too.

Up to the exit of La Source for example, the Mercedes was just 0.2 seconds ahead. By the time the cars got to Les Combes, the Mercedes had gained a further one second.

However, from that point on, until the exit of Paul Frere Corner, the Mercedes only pulled another 0.4 seconds ahead.

A further 0.6 seconds was lost between that point and the chicane, and more again accelerating out of it.

Overall, the GPS data suggested that McLaren was losing more that 2.3 seconds per lap on the straights, and only around half a second on the corners.

Compared to the other manufacturers, McLaren was said to be around two seconds adrift of Ferrari on the straights, and 1.1 seconds to Red Bull.

IMO, Arai should't have said that the chassis was "masking" the performance of the car.

[alexx_88]

I think that A LOT of what Arai says in Japanese is incorrectly translated by the newspapers and his English makes some of the stuff he says to sound differently than what he really means. Honda would do itself a world of good if they were to employ a PR representative or at least a translator to properly send their message across. I don't think any sane person would think any less of Arai if he'd bring a translator with him to press events.

[diffuser]

I think that A LOT of what Arai says in Japanese is incorrectly translated by the newspapers and his English makes some of the stuff he says to sound differently than what he really means. Honda would do itself a world of good if they were to employ a PR representative or at least a translator to properly send their message across. I don't think any sane person would think any less of Arai if he'd bring a translator with him to press events.

I don't understand why Strong English Oral skills wasn't a requirement for the job. I mean he is a front man, part of the McLaren/Honda works team.

You see him on those F1 interviews with the other PU designers and head designers and the camera never goes to him cause he can't say much. So Honda's paying Major $$$ to be on the F1 stage and his image is squandering away good PR time. No to mention he's creating confusion with fans.

[Wazari]

I think that A LOT of what Arai says in Japanese is incorrectly translated by the newspapers and his English makes some of the stuff he says to sound differently than what he really means. Honda would do itself a world of good if they were to employ a PR representative or at least a translator to properly send their message across. I don't think any sane person would think any less of Arai if he'd bring a translator with him to press events.

I don't understand why Strong English Oral skills wasn't a requirement for the job. I mean he is a front man, part of the McLaren/Honda works team.

You see him on those F1 interviews with the other PU designers and head designers and the camera never goes to him cause he can't say much. So Honda's paying Major $$$ to be on the F1 stage and his image is squandering away good PR time. No to mention he's creating confusion with fans.

That's where Japanese executives are sorely lacking in general. We were required to study English from 7th to 12th grade but it's all reading and writing with very little conversational skills practiced. If strong oral English skills were a requirement, in all seriousness you wouldn't have a candidate for the job.

If you really look at Japanese corporations, English spoken PR has never been their strong suit.

[Cannonballer]

I think that A LOT of what Arai says in Japanese is incorrectly translated by the newspapers and his English makes some of the stuff he says to sound differently than what he really means. Honda would do itself a world of good if they were to employ a PR representative or at least a translator to properly send their message across. I don't think any sane person would think any less of Arai if he'd bring a translator with him to press events.

Someone recently posted several quotes from Arai translated by native speaker and the difference from the media translations is huge. In those Arai's comments don't sound outlandish and out of touch. Quite a stark contrast.

Posted near the bottom by Thunders
http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... start=1620

[Sixbarboost]

Believe me, Honda will pull out by the end of the year.

[diffuser]

I think that A LOT of what Arai says in Japanese is incorrectly translated by the newspapers and his English makes some of the stuff he says to sound differently than what he really means. Honda would do itself a world of good if they were to employ a PR representative or at least a translator to properly send their message across. I don't think any sane person would think any less of Arai if he'd bring a translator with him to press events.

I don't understand why Strong English Oral skills wasn't a requirement for the job. I mean he is a front man, part of the McLaren/Honda works team.

You see him on those F1 interviews with the other PU designers and head designers and the camera never goes to him cause he can't say much. So Honda's paying Major $$$ to be on the F1 stage and his image is squandering away good PR time. No to mention he's creating confusion with fans.

That's where Japanese executives are sorely lacking in general. We were required to study English from 7th to 12th grade but it's all reading and writing with very little conversational skills practiced. If strong oral English skills were a requirement, in all seriousness you wouldn't have a candidate for the job.

If you really look at Japanese corporations, English spoken PR has never been their strong suit.

I can't believe there isn't somebody who is very strong technically and can speak fluently English and Japanese. There must be Some young guns who have studied abroad. You just to look for them.

[Wazari]

Believe me, Honda will pull out by the end of the year.

I don't think they will. Already have two PU designs on the table for 2016.

[Wazari]

I can't believe there isn't somebody who is very strong technically and can speak fluently English and Japanese. There must be Some young guns who have studied abroad. You just to look for them.

There might be somebody out there, but I haven't seen anyone that would fit that mold in the over 30 years I have been involved in the Japanese auto industry. I have attended universities both in Japan and the US in the whole Honda Racing department while I was there, I was the only one. I helped translate tech manuals as the translations done by the "official" translators were just awful. For some reason, Japanese to English and vice versa is a very difficult transition. French to Japanese, Italian to Japanese, Spanish to Japanese, etc, is much easier.

[alexx_88]

I think choosing the head of PU development in a Japanese company more on how good is his English than his engineering skills wouldn't be the best idea in the world.

However, why not bring in a translator? Wazari, would there be any reasons in Honda's corporate culture that makes this a bad idea?

[Abarth]

Believe me, Honda will pull out by the end of the year.

I don't think they will. Already have two PU designs on the table for 2016.

And I bet they will be on par with the others by then...
Pity they are stuck in these rules this year.

[davidfroshanzen]

Believe me, Honda will pull out by the end of the year.

I don't think they will. Already have two PU designs on the table for 2016.

one for small and large for the other? or something?

[Thunder18]

I think choosing the head of PU development in a Japanese company more on how good is his English than his engineering skills wouldn't be the best idea in the world.

However, why not bring in a translator? Wazari, would there be any reasons in Honda's corporate culture that makes this a bad idea?

Honda as a company, only as late of this year has adopted English to be it's main communications language. Back in the 80's, Honda did have a translator for both sides.

I have read elsewhere that Osamu Goto was hired back in April to assist in the translation side of things. Can you confirm that Wazari?

[Facts Only]

Believe me, Honda will pull out by the end of the year.

I don't think they will. Already have two PU designs on the table for 2016.

Two designs? Seriously?

This is Why Honda wont win, they dont understand what they need to do so they dont know what to design so they design twice.

I cant believe that after a year of racing they still havent decided what to do.

I'm sure that various people will wade in saying how they are testing different possibilities and concepts but any designer worth his salt knows that you need to fully understand what you need and what you are aiming for long before you start designing. You dont just chuck a load of mud at the wall and see what sticks.

It was the same when I saw that article on the Honda RA09 development and there was a picture of a about 10 different nose design concepts, everyone in the industry I know who saw it thought it was laughable how they were just taking a scatter gun approach to design.

Does anyone think Adrain Newey designs two different cars and then works out which is best?