Mclaren MP4-30 Honda

[Trocola]

But that is what testing is all about, all the team's are looking for gremlins! and why should they be out there doing lap's? McLaren's main aim today could be just to test most part's are working as they should. I am curious to know since you claim they should be doing lap's do you want to back that up with how many they should do?

Considering that there is only one car with a Honda engine, it could be useful to do some laps to see how the engine is working. But maybe not, and they have to stay on the garage and look for problems. That's more useful.

Put the engine on the car and start it is something you have to do back on Woking. With only 12 days of testing they can't be losing track time because they do not know how to install an engine

Mercedes last year did 30 laps IIRC and they stopped because the problem with the front wing, not because of the engine. That's what McLaren should be doing today

[taperoo2k]

Interesting tidbits from the Skysports F1 liveblog from around the 15:35 mark -

An update from the aforementioned Ron Dennis briefing: McLaren believe their problems today stem from 'intense packaging inside the engine' - in layman's terms, some of the sensors aren't talking correctly to their counterparts. The McLaren is carrying a tightly packaged power unit to make the most of the MP4-30's aero package - which, according to 'Big Ron' is "very, very impressive."

And -

Perhaps the most salient detail from McLaren is, however, that they will continue to use different development versions of their engine through testing until the second Barcelona meet.

http://www1.skysports.com/live-blog/124 ... y-one-live

[ollandos]

Ron Dennis held court in the McLaren motorhome for a fascinating 40 minutes or so, touching on numerous topics surrounding his team and F1 in general. Of course, the immediate focus centered on the MP4-30's lack of mileage today but Dennis said this of the team's engine schedule with Honda:

"Our race engines are two or three steps away from where we are now, therefore we’re still running development engines and will continue to run development engines through to the last test.

"The engine is an integral part of our size zero policy. The car is phenomenally tightly packaged in the back end, which has given huge scope to Peter and his team and they have taken full advantage of it.

"The level of detail and the precision of manufacturer of the components has surpassed anything any McLaren standards of the past. The elegance of some of the aerodynamic solutions as they’re packaged into suspension, brake ducts is done to a level we’ve never been able to achieve before."


An update from the aforementioned Ron Dennis briefing: McLaren believe their problems today stem from 'intense packaging inside the engine' - in layman's terms, some of the sensors aren't talking correctly to their counterparts. The McLaren is carrying a tightly packaged power unit to make the most of the MP4-30's aero package - which, according to 'Big Ron' is "very, very impressive."

[damager21]

I think the key part in Ron Dennis statement today was this

we've got some sensors that aren't talking correctly to other parts of the system. Therefore, whilst we can turn them off and circumvent them, this is what testing’s about so right now the guys are disassembling the car again to try and eliminate some short-circuiting on some sensors.

and

"Nothing’s overheating, which is normally what happens when you get it wrong on packaging, we’ve got no burning of heat shields. There is every indication that the mechanical design of the car has been well executed."

Looks positive but No one really knows the truth...

[ringo]

Ron Dennis held court in the McLaren motorhome for a fascinating 40 minutes or so, touching on numerous topics surrounding his team and F1 in general. Of course, the immediate focus centered on the MP4-30's lack of mileage today but Dennis said this of the team's engine schedule with Honda:

"Our race engines are two or three steps away from where we are now, therefore we’re still running development engines and will continue to run development engines through to the last test.

"The engine is an integral part of our size zero policy. The car is phenomenally tightly packaged in the back end, which has given huge scope to Peter and his team and they have taken full advantage of it.

"The level of detail and the precision of manufacturer of the components has surpassed anything any McLaren standards of the past. The elegance of some of the aerodynamic solutions as they’re packaged into suspension, brake ducts is done to a level we’ve never been able to achieve before."


An update from the aforementioned Ron Dennis briefing: McLaren believe their problems today stem from 'intense packaging inside the engine' - in layman's terms, some of the sensors aren't talking correctly to their counterparts. The McLaren is carrying a tightly packaged power unit to make the most of the MP4-30's aero package - which, according to 'Big Ron' is "very, very impressive."

I see that tight packaging as a weakness. They are running before they can walk. They may find themselves with a problem that cannot be corrected till next year. The car should have been designed with more breathing room; pun intended.

[Manoah2u]

as stated in the jerez testing thread, it's all good news for Honda.

they are actually doing better compared to last year's new engines. Remember, this is Honda's first real test.
Mercedes stalled after a couple of corners. Fires. Hamilton ran straight into the barriers due to a loose front wing.

Honda is actually making complete laps, without problems. that's good news.

the sound is normal; they are installation laps, testing modes, and finding bite points, finding torque, finding revs, and testing simulations in real life. They will be carefull not to damage anything. Meanwhile, they will check on fluids, oils, etc.
Looking at if all their simulation data indeed comes out in real life like they wanted to. Testing temperatures. Testing engine mapping. Testing with and without ERS on.

It's actually very promising. Mercedes did not have such great laps on their first test last year, and they did win,win,win and win. they became champions. And i'm not even mentioning the other manufacturers of last year. Remember Renaults problems? ugh, that was some serious stuff, and in the end, it all did end up well in Melbourne.

Honda is miles ahead compared to the competition last year.

Yes but they are not doing enough laps to perform all the "tests" that you are suggesting. The Idea behind test days are to test, not trace problems.
We saw last year that all the teams that struggled during the tests were on the back foot for most of the season, spending hours in the garage was not a good sign last year and it has not changed for 2015 - we need to be realistic
Being miles ahead of were they were last year means nothing, This is season 2015 and they are now miles behind the competition.

Go 1 year back in time, check out the threads here on what Mercedes and all the other manufacturers had to deal with during the initial tests, and then come back and rethink about what you just wrote, because i guess tonnes of repeating aren't enough by several members here that already explained this is Honda's first run and Mercedes and all faced the same 'problems', which in the end weren't really problems but logic due to cause and effect.

I stated it IN the quote you used, that Merc had the same last year and ended up being the WDC + WCC.

I don't know how to make it any clearer. Indeed, some men really do want to watch the world -scratch that- want to watch Mclaren Honda burn.

A more positive note;

It's all happiness for Mclaren imho now;

The inital testing on day 1 Jerez went sublimely well with Mclaren-Honda and as Ron stated, there were no cooling issues, just some electronic communication errors - which essentially is a matter of debugging and checking out the sensors.
Something perhaps as simple as better isolation on certain wires/sensors, or filtering out some process data in the computer.

This suggests though Honda WAS running with ERS etc. so if that is the case, then the amount of grunt the engine produces [soundwise] is even more impressive.

The engine sounds good, it performs realy well, there were no stalls nor fires, the Mclaren design looks sleek and fast, and the car seems to hold itself well planted to the ground, looks like it has a lot of traction in midspeed corners,

take that for the ignorant people claiming there will never be a red-white macca again.

and finally, combine that with a superbly strong driver pair; Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso and i say Mclaren's 2015 future looks as bright as the Japanese Sun! Can't wait!

this is going to be an awesome year - right after an already awesome 2014.
let's hope there will be no more injured drivers though! [-o< [-o<

[gandharva]

Go 1 year back in time, check out the threads here on what Mercedes and all the other manufacturers had to deal with during the initial tests, and then come back and rethink about what you just wrote, because i guess tonnes of repeating aren't enough by several members here that already explained this is Honda's first run and Mercedes and all faced the same 'problems', which in the end weren't really problems but logic due to cause and effect.

Why should anyone go back one year? We have 2015. They will have to race against 2015 competitors and not against the ones from last year... It's a completely different benchmark and compairing the teams progress against the progress of other teams in 2014 is simply wrong.

[Thunder]

Let's not have that Discussion AGAIN please. [-o< [-o<

[Johnlub]

as stated in the jerez testing thread, it's all good news for Honda.

they are actually doing better compared to last year's new engines. Remember, this is Honda's first real test.
Mercedes stalled after a couple of corners. Fires. Hamilton ran straight into the barriers due to a loose front wing.

Honda is actually making complete laps, without problems. that's good news.

the sound is normal; they are installation laps, testing modes, and finding bite points, finding torque, finding revs, and testing simulations in real life. They will be carefull not to damage anything. Meanwhile, they will check on fluids, oils, etc.
Looking at if all their simulation data indeed comes out in real life like they wanted to. Testing temperatures. Testing engine mapping. Testing with and without ERS on.

It's actually very promising. Mercedes did not have such great laps on their first test last year, and they did win,win,win and win. they became champions. And i'm not even mentioning the other manufacturers of last year. Remember Renaults problems? ugh, that was some serious stuff, and in the end, it all did end up well in Melbourne.

Honda is miles ahead compared to the competition last year.

Yes but they are not doing enough laps to perform all the "tests" that you are suggesting. The Idea behind test days are to test, not trace problems.
We saw last year that all the teams that struggled during the tests were on the back foot for most of the season, spending hours in the garage was not a good sign last year and it has not changed for 2015 - we need to be realistic
Being miles ahead of were they were last year means nothing, This is season 2015 and they are now miles behind the competition.

Go 1 year back in time, check out the threads here on what Mercedes and all the other manufacturers had to deal with during the initial tests, and then come back and rethink about what you just wrote, because i guess tonnes of repeating aren't enough by several members here that already explained this is Honda's first run and Mercedes and all faced the same 'problems', which in the end weren't really problems but logic due to cause and effect.

I stated it IN the quote you used, that Merc had the same last year and ended up being the WDC + WCC.

I don't know how to make it any clearer. Indeed, some men really do want to watch the world -scratch that- want to watch Mclaren Honda burn.

A more positive note;

It's all happiness for Mclaren imho now;

The inital testing on day 1 Jerez went sublimely well with Mclaren-Honda and as Ron stated, there were no cooling issues, just some electronic communication errors - which essentially is a matter of debugging and checking out the sensors.
Something perhaps as simple as better isolation on certain wires/sensors, or filtering out some process data in the computer.

This suggests though Honda WAS running with ERS etc. so if that is the case, then the amount of grunt the engine produces [soundwise] is even more impressive.

The engine sounds good, it performs realy well, there were no stalls nor fires, the Mclaren design looks sleek and fast, and the car seems to hold itself well planted to the ground, looks like it has a lot of traction in midspeed corners,

and the only negative aspect of the car - the livery - has now been confirmed to be resolved into either one of 2 amazing Mclaren icons; Papaya orange or classic Marlboro red-white, and there is no reason to assume otherwise then the latter being the final result; which means total win.

take that for the ignorant people claiming there will never be a red-white macca again.

and finally, combine that with a superbly strong driver pair; Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso and i say Mclaren's 2015 future looks as bright as the Japanese Sun! Can't wait!

this is going to be an awesome year - right after an already awesome 2014.
let's hope there will be no more injured drivers though! [-o< [-o<

Merc did more laps last year plus had Williams plus had McLaren plus had force india. It's 2015 btw and they will not wait to Honda

[Steven]

If any of you really thought that McLaren would come out on track and obliterate Mercedes and Ferrari, then you were living on your own islands and are underestimating the challenge that Formula One poses and the engineering quality present in the current engine suppliers and teams. McLaren Honda is progressing, and Alonso also mentioned earlier, and today again, that he knew there would be teething problems. Expecting anything else is just irrational.

Honda and McLaren are focused on their own job. To get the car working. Both Boullier and Arai have confirmed me in a meeting just minutes ago that they have chosen to design a car that can compete, so it's an aggresive engine package and a tightly packaged chassis. They were aware that this could pose problems, but they had designed initially with the homologation date in mind, so they pushed hard for performance (not that after homologation, they would have still been able to add upgrades for reliability).

The problems found now are different to those from Abu Dhabi, and are mainly electrical. They hope to fix them overnight, but are unsure whether that will uncover other problems.

Again, that's normal for a new power unit design. Ask all existing engine suppliers and they will confirm.

[alexx_88]

Absolutely pointless debate to have after one day of testing for a brand new, incredibly complex, machine. The problems they are having in getting all the systems to run together are normal and don't relate in any way to performance. It's enough to look at RB vs Ferrari in last year's testing to see that the number of miles they run in testing has nothing to do even with race performance. Ferrari ran almost as much as Merc, but was probably the weakest PU over the year.

What I can't understand is why manufacturers didn't use chassis dynos to test the PU in track-like conditions. With the reduced number of testing days that would've been priceless.

[CjC]

SKY: Alonso unfazed by slow start

[alexx_88]

The correct question that could be asked is: why didn't Mclaren schedule a shakedown to make sure that the Abu Dhabi problems were ironed out? Those filming days are perfect to find and fix exactly this kind of issues.

[ollandos]

i am sure mclaren have secure plan B ...at the moment push for the extreme to find the starting point....

[Steven]

The correct question that could be asked is: why didn't Mclaren schedule a shakedown to make sure that the Abu Dhabi problems were ironed out? Those filming days are perfect to find and fix exactly this kind of issues.

Probably because they weren't ready with their new chassis in time, and they may have thought testing with the old car would not have been useful? Not sure though, but there must be some valid reason...