2016 McLaren F1 Team - Honda

[dot235]

They did a 1:27.7 in qualifying last year on medium rubber. It would have been a 1:26.5 with the soft rubber like they'll use this year, but who knows, maybe Mercedes can dip into the 23's this year. Honda managed to do Mercedes qualifying time of last year but on softer rubber, they're still down a second, maybe more if Mercedes improved another half second or so.

In colder weather it's unsurpising to see faster laptimes.
Ferrari did 1:23.0 on soft rubber (not SS or US). By your logic this would mean that they improved by more than 2.5 sec (this lap was by Kimi, I'am sure Vettel has some more time in the bag even assuming that they were running empty and flat out) from last year's qualy on mediums (Seb did 1:25.458 in Q3) which is just plain ridiculous.

[Vasconia]

2012. You have a short memory.

When they make a good job during Winter, which is something that hasnt happened too frequently during the last seasons. McLaren can be great in in-season development but if you want to do something important you have to make a good pre-season work.

[McG]

2012. You have a short memory.

When they make a good job during Winter, which is something that hasnt happened too frequently during the last seasons. McLaren can be great in in-season development but if you want to do something important you have to make a good pre-season work.

2009 says otherwise.

[McG]

"In terms of performance, I think we need to still unlock a lot of performance in the engine because we ran, let's say, a little bit conservative now to have the reliability," Alonso added.

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alons ... 78145/?s=1

[dot235]

"In terms of performance, I think we need to still unlock a lot of performance in the engine because we ran, let's say, a little bit conservative now to have the reliability," Alonso added.

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alons ... 78145/?s=1

Cause conservative is exactly what they need being at the back of the grid.

[Vasconia]

2009 says otherwise.

Why? they did a shitty work during winter and things improved(at least a Little bit) during the season. Its what I have said.

[Vasconia]

"In terms of performance, I think we need to still unlock a lot of performance in the engine because we ran, let's say, a little bit conservative now to have the reliability," Alonso added.

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alons ... 78145/?s=1

Cause conservative is exactly what they need being at the back of the grid.

They were desperated to run so I find quite logic what they have done, though they should have tried to check the engine doing faster laps as well.

[McG]

2009 says otherwise.

Why? they did a shitty work during winter and things improved(at least a Little bit) during the season. Its what I have said.

No. You said the exact opposite.

[basti313]

"In terms of performance, I think we need to still unlock a lot of performance in the engine because we ran, let's say, a little bit conservative now to have the reliability," Alonso added.

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alons ... 78145/?s=1

Cause conservative is exactly what they need being at the back of the grid.

They were desperated to run so I find quite logic what they have done, though they should have tried to check the engine doing faster laps as well.

So they are still at the point, where they are just desperate to run? No....in this engine format performance is equal to reliability. Every car can go easily a second per lap faster if they sacrifice half of the engine lifetime.
So either they have no reliability that allows them to extract more power or they do not know how long their engine can survive competitive power levels. Whatever it is...this is not good for the performance.

[WaikeCU]

This is what I wrote back in the speculation thread mid February:

Here's a thing I want to ask. So there's rumor that Honda has yet again produced unreliable power units, but instead they have gained a lot on speed. So here's my question: If Honda produces an engine that makes the MP4-31 go 1 second faster than the Mercedes on race trim, but only lasts one race weekend, then what? Would it make sense that they start each race at the back of the grid because of changing power units and still manages to score lots of points because they are so much quicker than the rest, so they'll be coming back in point scoring positions in no time during the race?

So yeah who knows Mclaren are really going that way heading into the season.

[McG]

Why don't you guys actually go and read the article? Instead you are making yourself look really stupid and I bet it's not the first time.

Alonso said they are going to turn it up in the first couple of races and see where they are at in terms of performance. He said that it's a long season so even if they get a DNF they will at least know where they are at in terms of how far they can push the engine before it pops.

Could they have pushed until it popped in testing? Yes but then they wouldn't have all the data that running hundreds of laps allows.

Sure they could run conservatively all season and probably pick up some points but that part of testing is over. Now it's time to push it to the limit which all teams will be doing in Oz.

[basti313]

This is what I wrote back in the speculation thread mid February:

Here's a thing I want to ask. So there's rumor that Honda has yet again produced unreliable power units, but instead they have gained a lot on speed. So here's my question: If Honda produces an engine that makes the MP4-31 go 1 second faster than the Mercedes on race trim, but only lasts one race weekend, then what? Would it make sense that they start each race at the back of the grid because of changing power units and still manages to score lots of points because they are so much quicker than the rest, so they'll be coming back in point scoring positions in no time during the race?

So yeah who knows Mclaren are really going that way heading into the season.

This is a nice theory, but when you know that well when the engine fails, you can just make it better. We have seen it with Renault, that they had to turn down the engine, just because it failed randomly when going over a certain level. So I think that when you do not the exact points of the lifetime of the parts of your engine at certain power levels, then you will not finish a single race, when you turn it up into the unknown region.

[basti313]

Why don't you guys actually go and read the article? Instead you are making yourself look really stupid and I bet it's not the first time.

I think it is rather stupid to believe in the words of this interview and not to read between the lines...

Alonso said they are going to turn it up in the first couple of races and see where they are at in terms of performance. He said that it's a long season so even if they get a DNF they will at least know where they are at in terms of how far they can push the engine before it pops.

This is nonsense. You never want to push the engine "until it pops", as you need to dig through multiple damage in this case. You always want an engine at the end of its lifetime to see the wear if you want to improve its lifetime. So this is where you need testing: During testing you run the engine on a plan to finish it during and when you see something strange in the data you stop the car and doublecheck the data. If you think you have already reached the point where the engine might fail soon, you stop running. But if your plan is good, this is already late in the afternoon and does not hurt your plan.
The engine exchanges McLaren (and the other teams) did during the test looked pretty much like this.

What Alonso says does not make sense at all: You can not just stop running during a race to check the engine and as you will always suffer penalties you can not just go out and swap race engines.
Making reliability improvements like Alo is proposing for the season is only possible on the bench test. But this is not the same data you can get from running the engine in a F1 car.

Could they have pushed until it popped in testing? Yes but then they wouldn't have all the data that running hundreds of laps allows.

Except for aero testing and car setup running the engine not in race mode does not give usable data. You can not even work on the ERS deployment if you are not running the engine at full power. And aero testing or setup work does not need 100 laps.
So to me it looks like they did not do usable race simulations to get good reliability data from the engine. This tells me, that they are to far away from what they would call a "race mode" and the engine would blow up too fast if they would run it like they want it to run. So further engine work like working on the deployment during the test is useless.
The only positive thing I can see is that they seem to be confident to improve...

[dot235]

So they are still at the point, where they are just desperate to run? No....in this engine format performance is equal to reliability. Every car can go easily a second per lap faster if they sacrifice half of the engine lifetime.
So either they have no reliability that allows them to extract more power or they do not know how long their engine can survive competitive power levels. Whatever it is...this is not good for the performance.

Any facts to prove that?

I don't think they can gain this much, if they could we would see extreme engine maps for qualifying and much more uncertainty for the starting grid of each individual race. One team could choose to preserve the engine while another can decide to push for the best possible starting spot on their home race etc. Instead, we see very consistent results.

It's probably more like going 0.2s a lap faster to "sacrifice half of the engine lifetime". The gains start to get very much decremental at a certain point.

[basti313]

Any facts to prove that?

Just arbitrary numbers for the sake of clarity. I think the 0.2sec you mention are more like reality.
I came to the 1sec as Alo had a lot of extra power in Canada when he defended against Vet. But ok..he killed the engine, not only half lifetime.