2016 McLaren F1 Team - Honda

[DiogoBrand]

Honda is not (yet) a good enough PU, that's quite clear. With that PU, on a power track, Alonso was capable of 5th fastest lap time on not-so-fresh tyres and made another couple of fast laps as well. Chassis and aero can't be THAT bad...

As has said before by people with much more knowledge of Honda's design than myself, their problem isn't peak power, but rather the power they produce when using less than maximum fuel flow. Therefore Honda's PU should be capable of doing some quick laps, their biggest problem is during the race with limited fuel load.
So McLaren being able to run fast in practice and qualifying, and even some fast laps here and there during the race shouldn't indicate that they're compensating for the lack of power with a top notch chassis, it rather indicates that Honda can deliver good power, just not all the time.

Are you saying Nico Hulkenberg is a liar?

Are you saying that "what the guy behind that car said" is a good measure of chassis quality?

[f1fan_007]

hmmmm .... lemme guess .....listen to drivers who said chassis is very good and close to being top 3 and even other drivers who see the car going thru corners or internet "expert" .. ..... hmmmmm.....i'd have to pick drivers every time i guess, not that difficult.

[GoranF1]

Honda is not (yet) a good enough PU, that's quite clear. With that PU, on a power track, Alonso was capable of 5th fastest lap time on not-so-fresh tyres and made another couple of fast laps as well. Chassis and aero can't be THAT bad...

As has said before by people with much more knowledge of Honda's design than myself, their problem isn't peak power, but rather the power they produce when using less than maximum fuel flow. Therefore Honda's PU should be capable of doing some quick laps, their biggest problem is during the race with limited fuel load.
So McLaren being able to run fast in practice and qualifying, and even some fast laps here and there during the race shouldn't indicate that they're compensating for the lack of power with a top notch chassis, it rather indicates that Honda can deliver good power, just not all the time.

Are you saying Nico Hulkenberg is a liar?

Are you saying that "what the guy behind that car said" is a good measure of chassis quality?

Yes...there were other drivers as well.

[dr_cooke]

Honda is not (yet) a good enough PU, that's quite clear. With that PU, on a power track, Alonso was capable of 5th fastest lap time on not-so-fresh tyres and made another couple of fast laps as well. Chassis and aero can't be THAT bad...

As has said before by people with much more knowledge of Honda's design than myself, their problem isn't peak power, but rather the power they produce when using less than maximum fuel flow. Therefore Honda's PU should be capable of doing some quick laps, their biggest problem is during the race with limited fuel load.
So McLaren being able to run fast in practice and qualifying, and even some fast laps here and there during the race shouldn't indicate that they're compensating for the lack of power with a top notch chassis, it rather indicates that Honda can deliver good power, just not all the time.

Are you saying Nico Hulkenberg is a liar?

Are you saying that "what the guy behind that car said" is a good measure of chassis quality?

I have not said that chassis is compensating for anything. What I say is that, unless Honda PU is superior to the ones ahead, maximum deficit on chassis side should be in the range shown by that fast lap difference in Sochi. And that's not considering potentially non ideal settings they may have been forced to use. If still Honda PU is worse than the others (quite likely, we may agree), then deficit is just a fraction of that one.

[Stalker1]

Maybe I am talking total rubbish, but McLaren seems to have high drag/high downforce chassis right now. The high drag aspect is adding to the thirstiness of Honda PU.

[Andres125sx]

Honda is not (yet) a good enough PU, that's quite clear. With that PU, on a power track, Alonso was capable of 5th fastest lap time on not-so-fresh tyres and made another couple of fast laps as well. Chassis and aero can't be THAT bad...

As has said before by people with much more knowledge of Honda's design than myself, their problem isn't peak power, but rather the power they produce when using less than maximum fuel flow. Therefore Honda's PU should be capable of doing some quick laps, their biggest problem is during the race with limited fuel load.
So McLaren being able to run fast in practice and qualifying, and even some fast laps here and there during the race shouldn't indicate that they're compensating for the lack of power with a top notch chassis, it rather indicates that Honda can deliver good power, just not all the time.

I think you´ve misuderstand that statement. If I got it correctly less than maximum fuel flow is a situation used only when at partial throttle, not on race trim as you seem to think. Fuel flow is always the same, when drivers need to save fuel they do not reduce fuel flow, they start doing lift and coast wich means releasing the throttle before reaching the braking point so the car goes some part of the straight without using fuel (iddle), but (max) fuel flow is constant always.

For qualy that´s not a problem, but they don´t have qualy mode yet so that´s harming their perfomance on saturdays. And on sundays partial throttle and fuel economy are harming their perfomance equally

Are you saying Nico Hulkenberg is a liar?

Are you saying that "what the guy behind that car said" is a good measure of chassis quality?

Obviously much much better than any armchair expert opinion

[Manoah2u]

Lets be honest here people, since the departure of Newey, Mclaren has not been at their game. Aero-wise it's been a mess time after time.There have been occasional 'wonders' when Button and Hamilton were able to keep up to the championship, but even then it was more dueto bad luck from redbull's side to be able to get within WDC distance. Hamilton left at the right time, and years later we're still not even close.

Personally, i have the feeling the quality of the chassis and the engine really isnt that bad at all. I rather think the internal structure of Mclaren F1is a total mess and it hinders their ability to make something out of it.

I think they lured Alonso on real facts, not just ideas. I think the material really was there, but the execution lacks because people just dont workwell together and are hindered by the clinical cold and distant ethic Ron imposes on his employees. Looking at it now, Mclaren actually faired good under Whitmarsh. I think the golden key Whitmarsh had was that he was such a friendly amicable bloke that people simply sided him on almost a natural level and it brought partnership within the Mclaren F1 team. Unfortunately, he made some huge errors - mainly had to do with contracts, sponsorships and drivers. Personally, I think Mclaren should hired somebody else to do that task and release some tension from martin.

I think what really cost his head was the loss of 'FULL' Mercedes partnership when it was decided Mercedes would go with their own works team and leave Mclaren with less input and the intent of a b-spec engine. That would not have happened under Ron Dennis' eye, he would have absolutely demanded.

Unfortunately, they sacked him -whitmarsh- and replaced him with somebody worse - Bouillier. I still grasp to understand why on earth that guy ended up there. I was severly unimpressed with him @ Lotus and much more unimpressed @ Mclaren.

What i'm very curious about though is whether Honda really was the 'original' plan for Mclaren when it became clear Mercedes was going for a works project. My gut feeling is that it wasn't. Ask me, they might have had 2 other candidates. BMW or AUDI. The problem with AUDI [hell, they could go TAG porsche], was twofold; 1 the big boss @ VAG would not give a green light, and 2: I could see Mclaren go for an additional engine partnership for their road car programme.
That would clash with AUDI's own road programme, given that the Mclaren Cars are competition for the Audi R8/R10 and Lamborghini's, not to forget the Porsche 918.
BMW would have made a fairly logical partnership; they have had - i dont actually know whether they still do - BMW engines in their Mclaren F1 road car, and had incredible success as such. I could see a BMW-Mclaren F1 team partnership working. But, obviously, BMW did not go for it, and Honda did.

I think Honda underestimated the mountain to climb. and as been said, Honda seems to have been too willing to do things 'Mclarens way' instead of doing things THEIR way.

On top of it all, like i said above, internal cooperation because of the 'business structure' of Mclaren makes things unneccesary more complicated.

[Manoah2u]

Anyway,

During the Russian GP, Alonso 'wanted to have some fun' and tuned the engine up and slammed in some fast laps. Tuned it down afterwards, but obviously it just shows how bored Alonso became during the race and wanted to use some of the potential the car has.

So the fact they CAN run like that for a short time window indeed shows that it is probably due to fuel usage, and perhaps -still- overheating. 1 or 2 laps probably doesnt do that much but a full race distance?

[diffuser]

We seem to be rehashing the same olds here...

not sure why other possible PU manufactures keeps coming up. The fact is those companies didn't get into bed with McLaren and still haven't returned to F1. I can imagine that if they got into bed with Audi that they might be finding themselves without a PU this year(Audi might have pulled out after the VW fiasco).

It's like saying "my life might have been better if I married Julianne Hough". Truth is, she probably would NOT even return an email if I sent 1. At any rate McLaren married Honda (equivalent to Witney Carson) ..So lets make the best of it.

As for EB...he was hired in late Jan (let's Feb) 2014.
2014 was the last year of the Merc PU and really when you come on board on Feb 1st, You've had 0 influence on the 2014 car.
- Peter Prodromou came on board in Sept of 2014 which means he didn't have much influence on the 2015 year car
-Newey was hired by Redbull in Nov of 2006, Redbull didn't win their first race till 2009.


Point is it's too early to say either EB or PP is cr@p.

[GoranF1]

Alonso : Chassis is up there.

http://m.crash.net/f1/news/230086/1/alo ... veEbLZ6.99

[ringo]

The chassis is good of course. I would not slam the chassis or the engine, no reason to play the blame game.
We have to understand that 1s over a 1 and a half minute lap is really less than 1%, the car isn't bad at all. The engine needs the chassis and the chassis needs the engine to be at their best.
I say give them some time to iron things out. All is not lost, and EB is doing an ok job IMO.
Once Honda sorts out their engine we will see the full potential of the chassis. It's not as good as a redbull, but i feel it's very close based on how it moves through the corners.
What cannot be helped is the wing, tyre, cooling and suspension settings that must be compromised to match with the engine's characteristics and its operating requirements for cooling etc.
The engine is the starting point however. Every improvement with the engine will mean a big improvement with the chassis.

As for Wazari's post. It's top notch and at the same time it does not disrespect or reveal anything about Honda or Mclaren.
And it's lucky for me to be able to be in touch with the sport in this kind of way.
We don't get as much access to the behind the scenes stuff like we used to decades ago. So this is very pleasing.

[McG]

Your point about the intetnal structure of McLaren is compete nonsense. What the hell do you know about running a big company and what the hell do you know about Ron Dennis. Absolutely nothing.

There's a lot of chit chat for only 1 thing that needs to be said... the Honda engine is crap.

Your point about McLaren being nowhere since Newey left is nonsense too. You abondon your point immediately by blaming Red Bull unreliability for McLaren doing pretty good. Nonsense. McLaren were fast merit.

Anyway,

During the Russian GP, Alonso 'wanted to have some fun' and tuned the engine up and slammed in some fast laps. Tuned it down afterwards, but obviously it just shows how bored Alonso became during the race and wanted to use some of the potential the car has.

So the fact they CAN run like that for a short time window indeed shows that it is probably due to fuel usage, and perhaps -still- overheating. 1 or 2 laps probably doesnt do that much but a full race distance?

[DiogoBrand]

Honda is not (yet) a good enough PU, that's quite clear. With that PU, on a power track, Alonso was capable of 5th fastest lap time on not-so-fresh tyres and made another couple of fast laps as well. Chassis and aero can't be THAT bad...

As has said before by people with much more knowledge of Honda's design than myself, their problem isn't peak power, but rather the power they produce when using less than maximum fuel flow. Therefore Honda's PU should be capable of doing some quick laps, their biggest problem is during the race with limited fuel load.
So McLaren being able to run fast in practice and qualifying, and even some fast laps here and there during the race shouldn't indicate that they're compensating for the lack of power with a top notch chassis, it rather indicates that Honda can deliver good power, just not all the time.

I think you´ve misuderstand that statement. If I got it correctly less than maximum fuel flow is a situation used only when at partial throttle, not on race trim as you seem to think. Fuel flow is always the same, when drivers need to save fuel they do not reduce fuel flow, they start doing lift and coast wich means releasing the throttle before reaching the braking point so the car goes some part of the straight without using fuel (iddle), but (max) fuel flow is constant always.

For qualy that´s not a problem, but they don´t have qualy mode yet so that´s harming their perfomance on saturdays. And on sundays partial throttle and fuel economy are harming their perfomance equally

Are you saying Nico Hulkenberg is a liar?

Are you saying that "what the guy behind that car said" is a good measure of chassis quality?

Obviously much much better than any armchair expert opinion

You basically downrate posts based on "If I got it correctly", nice!
The maximum fuel load for a race is 100Kg, and the fuel flow must not exceed 100Kg/h at any moment, which means that whatever the circunstance is, no more than 27,7g of fuel should be flowing into the engine per second. That maximum fuel flow is always going to be achieved at full throttle, true, but that doesn't mean that every time you're at full throttle you're at maximum fuel flow, as teams have a number of different engine modes to choose from.

When I was mentioning someone well more educated on the matter than myself, I was referring to Wazari's statement that while Mercedes is well ahead of Honda in less-than-maximum fuel flow modes, Honda is almost up to par when using maximum fuel flow.

That said, we can't assume McLaren has got a good chassis simply because their best laps during the weekend are competitive, simply because for those laps their power deficit isn't very big. Their power deficit is bigger during the race, when they can't run the fastest engine mode all the time.

To me McLaren's chassis may be up to par with Williams and Toro Rosso, behind Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes, but it is definitely no more than that.

And if someone is so outraged by my opinion, just ignore it, you're not forced to believe what I think. In fact I'm really surprised about people getting so upset about an "armchair expert's" opinion.

[Manoah2u]

Take a deep breath, calm down, and take a chill pill dude. what the hell.

No it is not nonsense, there have been many comments about the sterile environment of Mclaren. Lewis himself complained about that, as have many other ex-Mclaren 'employees'.

First of all, you have no clue what my job is, my position and whether i do or do not know anything about Ron Dennis.
I know enough about Ron Dennis' clinical and cold approach to business.
Did i hit you in the groin with my comment? if so, calm the fuzz down.

Nobody can talk rubbish about Mclaren's current state of affairs? Gimme a laugh, Mclaren is a complete and total mess at this point. It reminds me of the state of affairs of Williams a couple of years ago.

So really, to reflect your own post 'What the hell do you know about running a big company and what the hell do you know about Honda and the Honda engine? Absolutely nothing."

The Honda engine is not crap at all. Go ahead and read a couple of pages here and go ahead and read a couple of pages in the Honda engine topic. You'll find valuable information there to discover it is not as bad as it seems. The combined execution is the problem.

I abandon my point by mclaren being nowhere by noting the fact redbull had problems? Like both drivers taking eachother out? haha you make me laugh. Mclaren was not fast merit, Mclaren had moments of advantage like the F-duct, and moments where everything fell into place as a well-oiled machine. Remember Canada when Hamilton and Button clashed and in the end, Button won the race by forcing Vettel into an error? How many of those races occured versus the amount where RedBull just sped away into the distance like Merc is doing now?

get your head out of the pink mclaren goggles.

Newey left Mclaren, Mclaren spiraled downwards. Newey went to RedBull, virtually made the RedBull aero into what Mclaren used to be (just compare Newey's Mclaren cars with Newey's RedBull cars) RedBull took Mclaren's position and blasted into a winning streak. You can imagine the frustration for Mclaren that RedBull had the success they had with their former 'Superpower'. Had Newey had the freedom he had @ RedBull at Mclaren, and had Mclaren kept Newey - then things would have been totally different and that 4-year RedBull dominance would have been a 4-year Mclaren dominance with Hamilton as the multiple world champion. RedBull would still have been where they were before Newey came aboard, and the question that would have remained would have been whether Ferrari would have gotten close with Alonso?

But all is a 'what if' so it means squad and nothing.

Your point about the intetnal structure of McLaren is compete nonsense. What the hell do you know about running a big company and what the hell do you know about Ron Dennis. Absolutely nothing.

There's a lot of chit chat for only 1 thing that needs to be said... the Honda engine is crap.

Your point about McLaren being nowhere since Newey left is nonsense too. You abondon your point immediately by blaming Red Bull unreliability for McLaren doing pretty good. Nonsense. McLaren were fast merit.

Anyway,

During the Russian GP, Alonso 'wanted to have some fun' and tuned the engine up and slammed in some fast laps. Tuned it down afterwards, but obviously it just shows how bored Alonso became during the race and wanted to use some of the potential the car has.

So the fact they CAN run like that for a short time window indeed shows that it is probably due to fuel usage, and perhaps -still- overheating. 1 or 2 laps probably doesnt do that much but a full race distance?

[Andres125sx]

As has said before by people with much more knowledge of Honda's design than myself, their problem isn't peak power, but rather the power they produce when using less than maximum fuel flow. Therefore Honda's PU should be capable of doing some quick laps, their biggest problem is during the race with limited fuel load.
So McLaren being able to run fast in practice and qualifying, and even some fast laps here and there during the race shouldn't indicate that they're compensating for the lack of power with a top notch chassis, it rather indicates that Honda can deliver good power, just not all the time.

I think you´ve misuderstand that statement. If I got it correctly less than maximum fuel flow is a situation used only when at partial throttle, not on race trim as you seem to think. Fuel flow is always the same, when drivers need to save fuel they do not reduce fuel flow, they start doing lift and coast wich means releasing the throttle before reaching the braking point so the car goes some part of the straight without using fuel (iddle), but (max) fuel flow is constant always.

For qualy that´s not a problem, but they don´t have qualy mode yet so that´s harming their perfomance on saturdays. And on sundays partial throttle and fuel economy are harming their perfomance equally

Are you saying that "what the guy behind that car said" is a good measure of chassis quality?

Obviously much much better than any armchair expert opinion

You basically downrate posts based on "If I got it correctly", nice!

You basically assume I´ve downvoted your post when I´ve not, not nice!

The maximum fuel load for a race is 100Kg, and the fuel flow must not exceed 100Kg/h at any moment, which means that whatever the circunstance is, no more than 27,7g of fuel should be flowing into the engine per second. That maximum fuel flow is always going to be achieved at full throttle, true, but that doesn't mean that every time you're at full throttle you're at maximum fuel flow, as teams have a number of different engine modes to choose from.

Do engine modes really change fuel flow?

I was assuming they only change ERS behaviour, but I can be wrong easily

That said, we can't assume McLaren has got a good chassis simply because their best laps during the weekend are competitive, simply because for those laps their power deficit isn't very big. Their power deficit is bigger during the race, when they can't run the fastest engine mode all the time.

We can´t assume the contrary either

To me McLaren's chassis may be up to par with Williams and Toro Rosso, behind Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes, but it is definitely no more than that.

Then you only disagree about Ferrari and Mercedes, you think they´re a bit faster while some people think McLaren is close to them. Not that big difference then

And if someone is so outraged by my opinion, just ignore it, you're not forced to believe what I think. In fact I'm really surprised about people getting so upset about an "armchair expert's" opinion.

The problem is the thread is flooded with "airmchair expert´s" opinions bashing McLaren and Honda constantly without any evidence, just because they´re not fighting for the title, so at some point some of us get tired of the permanent bashing and reply some of those unfounded opinions

But I don´t see any problem, this is a forum so discussing is the purpose, not a problem