Mclaren MP4-30 Honda

[bonjon1979]

Didn't Honda had a chance to study Mercedes PU in details? To get some kowledge about materials used, so sealing wouldn't fail, exhaust wouldn't overheat...

I'm not sure they did. Merc engineers were assigned to each Mclaren engine. After each GP, the engines went back to Brixworth rather than to woking. I'm sure that the Mclaren engineers would've been able to give some insight but the truth is, the Honda project would've been well on it's way by the time Mclaren first saw the Merc engine at the beginning of 2014.

[shady07]

Ah so... I didn't know that they have to return them. I thought they pay them and they keep them.

[Juzh]

EDIT: Why is Alonso's speed over the finish line almost competitive? It's better than Sainz, and Sainz finished the race and had DRS at times as well. Button's speed on S2 is also somewhat surprising, considering their S1 disaster.

It's because of ERS deployment strategy.

[wickedz50]

Ah so... I didn't know that they have to return them. I thought they pay them and they keep them.

Can not Honda copy the Merc engine ? nothing was as secret. Honda Honda and Honda now has miles to go before they can match the second most quickest car on the grid. I am dissapointed and sad.

[pastaracing]

I talked to a guy from the ForceIndia-staff last year.

He said that McLaren had big issues to get the car and motor to work together.
Because of the decision of go for Honda-engines for 2015 they were not allowed to touch anything on the engine, only Mercedes-staff working on hardware and software.
Therefore they had big difficulties to get the package to work in harmony.
They could just ask for a change in the behavior and hope it will work.

Force India had a much better relationship to Mercedes and worked together.

Therefore I think that they didn't learn as much as they wanted with the Merc-engine in the back. Also, the data they could record is already old when you start a new season.

[Mr.G]

Honda need to build a civil car prototype and mount inside the F1 engine and start testing

[ChrisF1]

Benson said this today on the BBC:

''McLaren have a major upgrade to the car for the next race in Austria, and another for the subsequent British Grand Prix. If they deliver what the team believe they will, the car could be as good as a Mercedes.''

Sadly that Mercedes is a 2004 A-Class.

[adrianjordan]

Benson said this today on the BBC:

''McLaren have a major upgrade to the car for the next race in Austria, and another for the subsequent British Grand Prix. If they deliver what the team believe they will, the car could be as good as a Mercedes.''

Sadly that Mercedes is a 2004 A-Class.

You beat me to it..!!

[drunkf1fan]

Far far too many journalists have a tie in with a particular company or team. Not necessarily in terms of flat out lying but in terms of they know a guy that gets them passes to things, who will leak some of the better rumours from up and down the grid and maybe are more willing to just regurgitate whatever they are told by PR people as a favour maybe.

There are other journalists who are simply flat out useless and regurgitate everything they are told regardless of the inaccurate nature of what they are told. I don't really know where Benson lies in that but the press is in general very tame. When you think about sky as a whole if they just say Mclaren are a useless PR machine and can't be believed then you'll find interviews from Honda/Mclaren guys not forth coming, Button and Alonso giving crap or no answers to Sky reporters before/after races. It's a game, if you don't maintain friendships you get less access so calling out a team isn't generally done.

As for calling a chassis good or not, it's an entirely pointless discussion. That engine was made to be smashed into a tiny space and if we're honest, sucks because of it. Merc/Ferrari/other cars could all have better aero if they decided the engine had to take up less space, they'd have worse engines but better aero. Mclaren are almost certainly going to follow Ferrari's development path over winter, big compromises to unleash a useful engine, at which point their aero starts fresh.

You SHOULD have better aero if you compromise the engine more than anyone else for the sake of aero, lets see what Mclaren come up with next year when they are most likely forced to compromise aero for engine as any other remotely fast team has to deal with.

Comparing Mclaren/Ferrari aero/chassis is comparing apples to oranges. For their engine deficit which is at least in part caused by compromises made for aero you need vastly superior aero/chassis design to be competitive, only matching Ferrari aero(which frankly I don't believe anyway) isn't a particularly positive statement anyway.

[diffuser]

We can see from the issues Ferrari had over the weekend, that when you make PU upgrades in season...the unexpected can occur.

Honda has made a ton of changes to their PU.....I guess what they're going thru isn't unexpected.

[GoranF1]

Both cars whit unspecified exhaust failiure.
Perfect reason to change it from log to normal on reability reasons.

[sdg]

^^ This is a good point I think.

If McLaren and Honda are going to be hyper-aggressive about development this season under these regulations, why wouldn't they push to the breaking point every part of the powerunit they would like to replace through development.

It's possible to already read this between the lines.

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12479 ... or-mclaren

How hamstrung are you by only having seven tokens left for the rest of the season?

“We have enough reliability issues to fix there that we can do without the tokens. So I don’t think tokens is the issue at all, we just need time.”

[ferkan]

Both cars whit unspecified exhaust failiure.
Perfect reason to change it from log to normal on reability reasons.

Or they can present to FIA and other teams what is with their log style exhaust that doesnt work so they can fix it on reliability grounds. If fix proves to be impossible there are tokens to be spent on tubular exhaust manifolds.

[DiogoBrand]

Far far too many journalists have a tie in with a particular company or team. Not necessarily in terms of flat out lying but in terms of they know a guy that gets them passes to things, who will leak some of the better rumours from up and down the grid and maybe are more willing to just regurgitate whatever they are told by PR people as a favour maybe.

There are other journalists who are simply flat out useless and regurgitate everything they are told regardless of the inaccurate nature of what they are told. I don't really know where Benson lies in that but the press is in general very tame. When you think about sky as a whole if they just say Mclaren are a useless PR machine and can't be believed then you'll find interviews from Honda/Mclaren guys not forth coming, Button and Alonso giving crap or no answers to Sky reporters before/after races. It's a game, if you don't maintain friendships you get less access so calling out a team isn't generally done.

As for calling a chassis good or not, it's an entirely pointless discussion. That engine was made to be smashed into a tiny space and if we're honest, sucks because of it. Merc/Ferrari/other cars could all have better aero if they decided the engine had to take up less space, they'd have worse engines but better aero. Mclaren are almost certainly going to follow Ferrari's development path over winter, big compromises to unleash a useful engine, at which point their aero starts fresh.

You SHOULD have better aero if you compromise the engine more than anyone else for the sake of aero, lets see what Mclaren come up with next year when they are most likely forced to compromise aero for engine as any other remotely fast team has to deal with.

Comparing Mclaren/Ferrari aero/chassis is comparing apples to oranges. For their engine deficit which is at least in part caused by compromises made for aero you need vastly superior aero/chassis design to be competitive, only matching Ferrari aero(which frankly I don't believe anyway) isn't a particularly positive statement anyway.

Couldn't agree more. McLaren and Honda seem to be a step behind everyone else. The era where aero was everything was from 2013 backwards, since last year it's the PU that's dictating performance, so they go and sacrifice the PU to favour aero and it just won't work. My opinion is that they should start with a good PU in terms of performance, and 'shrink' afterwards if it turns out to be possible, not start with a small PU and then try to build up performance upon it.

[Jef Patat]

That engine was made to be smashed into a tiny space and if we're honest, sucks because of it.

My opinion is that they should start with a good PU in terms of performance, and 'shrink' afterwards

How can you be so convinced to make that kind of statements? How do you 'shrink' an engine? As far as the MP4-30 engine goes we have very little information and lots of speculations. We don't even know what kind of problems they are suffering. The ERS is not delivering, sure, but what does that mean, what's the origin of the problem? We don't even know what kind of turbo they are using and where it sits.

You cannot start with a 'big' engine and different packing to then just 'switch' to a 'small' engine, different packing, different aero concept,... midseason.

They chose a big steep mountain to climb, maybe they succeed maybe they won't. What you guys are saying is more like: they should have chosen a smaller mountain, and after having climbed that one, switch to the bigger mountain only to see that you need different gear and an extra amount of time.