Manoah2u wrote: ↑17 Apr 2017, 21:05
zac510 wrote: ↑02 Apr 2017, 13:09
I don't think it's fair to blame the FIA. Only with hindsight can you blame the FIA. Nobody at any time prior to testing of 2014, that I can recall, thought that the rules were bad at all. The equalisation of the V8s worked so well and all engine makers - Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault - seemed so professional that nobody thought they'd do anything but create new V6 hybrid engines of an equally high standard and competitiveness with the new rules.
I'm not doubting that the rules were short-sighted, but at the time we had a lot of faith in the 3 manufacturers and no reason to doubt the rules.
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Only with hindsight? Not only, with hindsight you can blame Honda for not choosing 'the right path'. But that same goes for FIA, that gave us 2 full miserable years of absolutely retarded token systems, which resulted in Mercedes having a ginormeous advantage, and Renault in a complete mess, which destroyed their relationship with RedBull. If we were to look into that, then FIA has destroyed both Renault and Honda for that matter, and then i'm not even mentioning Ferrari wasn't in best of shapes either.
Mercedes did their job better for 2014, sure. But the problem was that there was no way Renault or Ferrari could advance thanks to the rediculous token system. Remove the token system and all of a sudden Ferrari is right there with Mercedes. Renault is still slightly behind somehow and then there's Honda. The problem with Honda is exactly like Andres125sx has mentioned.
Whilst Ferrari and Mercedes and Renault were working on that unit years prior to 2014, Honda only became an option or motivated when the relationship with Mercedes and Mclaren ended, and Mclaren somehow convinced Honda to step in.
When Honda concidered stepping in, they were already atleast a year behind, probably more compared to the competition, and add to that, that all along, the competition was participating in F1 whilst Honda wasn't.
Then Honda misfired with their intitial engine prototype and saw them needing to fix that under the token system = impossible. Then next year it went a lot better but then also not, still, under the token system.
They decided to go with a totally different design this time around, only this is the first time you can't directly blame the token system - mind you, FIA's sins compile of more than just the token system , but let's focus on this right now - though indirectly, they had their hands tied in 2015 and 2016 thanks to exactly that, and lost precious time.
So really, this time around is really the only time you can really look at Honda, and that's exactly what's happening. Meanwhile, Mclaren has put enormeous pressure on Honda and we're going to find out in a couple of races what the result will be.
Let's hope it will be a mighty result, but keep in mind that that result must be made despite the FIA's rediculous system, which includes the last 3 years of token system nonsense.
Because however you put it, like claiming 'yeah but Merc and Fer and Ren also had the token system', is shortsighted, as that may be true, but Honda still was years behind to that and also had that token system issue. Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes had a couple of years more of development under their belt than Honda, and i'm 100% sure that their V6 engines were already steadily under development somewhere in 2012 for sure, not so much for Honda.
which means that you could wonder in what shape the Merc engine would have been if you catapulted that to the track mid 2012 or early 2013 in a hurry. That's what we're seeing at Honda.
I see a lot of fundamental issues with the whole approach of blaming FIA, token system and trying to protect Honda from blames.
It was ultimately, Honda's decision to enter the arena by 2015.
Honda confirms 2015 F1 return as McLaren engine supplier
Honda has been known to have been in talks with McLaren for some time and has already made significant progress with its all-new 1.6-litre turbocharged V6 Formula 1 engine, working out of its R&D facility in Tochigi, Japan.
The news report was official by May 2013 and obviously, no corporate decision would be done in a jiffy and must have been in talks for quite a long time before all the agreements were signed and then went public with the announcement. So, they had a little over 2 years time to prepare to enter the field.
I am sure, the decision to start from 2015 itself MUST have been well thought out and was their OWN. At the time when they were deciding to take up the project and enter in 2015, they knew all the parameters and regulations completely well to have made the decision to enter in 2015. To now blame the token restrictions and all, doesn't make sense. Look at Haas, they did not hurry into jumping on the field for 2015. They took enough time to get themselves ready and came in 2016 and had a rewarding year. It must have been too attractive to jump in 2015 itself, but they resisted.
Honda also had one full year to look at the class leading Mercedes PU that McLaren was using in 2014. Whatever work they were doing for their PU, they had a reference in front of them. They could see the complete and detailed architecture of Mercedes PU and their engineers at the base could (or should) have made sense of each component's design and then, base their own work on that understanding.
Ferrari had failed spectacularly for 2014 with their PU, but they managed to recover miraculously for 2015! They did go through the same pain of restricted tokens, but ended up almost having an equal best PU.
After realizing the challenges and firing their previous Engine chief, Honda dedicated a whole new team for 2017 PU (at the beginning of 2016) and should have used their two troublesome years' worth of learning to bounce back. But, they turned up in the same situation as they were in their first appearance. They have spent 4 years on the PU, starting from 2013 and they are exactly where they were when they started.
And this is what their Engine chief has to say,
- Link to the Article -
Hasegawa, 5 April, 2017 wrote:“As a matter of fact we were thinking too easy, [but] it was too difficult to achieve the new technology. We had some laboratory level experiments. We were thinking too easy, so that was my mistake.”
Saying, the regulations and token restrictions is the reason for shambles at Honda, is belittling other manufacturers' hard work and hiding the mediocrity of the work that Honda has done.
If you have right people, good things happen, but if you have wrong people, only bad things happen. We are talking about the premier class of motorsport where engineers swim with their hands tied to their back due to regulatory restrictions. Here, creative people come up with great solutions and mediocre ones, with excuses.
science 
is analyzing the 
.
Do you think Honda is not able to change his PU in winter?