Talisman wrote: ↑13 Feb 2018, 00:45
bonjon1979 wrote: ↑12 Feb 2018, 23:04
Of course, the documentary could be false but since it’s mclaren producing it I’d find it strange that they lie about their own driver...
McLaren didn't produce the documentary. They invited a production company in. There is a big difference. While the documentary seems pretty 'fair' to me since none of us have experienced what actually went on we are not in a position to judge. Certainly there is little Honda input.
I thought that McLaren missed a big opportunity here. We are told at times, especially at the launch, that 2017 will be an entirely new era. McLaren will go into the post-Ron phase. There is a big problem with this, I'm sure that I'm not alone in thinking that the values I think of when I see McLaren are largely in common with or due to Ron. What does McLaren stand for without him? Unlike Ferrari post-Enzo McLaren clearly want to move on and differentiate the new era from the old. Ron didn't drop out because he died, he was ejected forcibly by the rest of the shareholders in bitter infighting. I can understand McLaren not allowing this topic to be discussed in the documentary but why not use it to explain more about what the McLaren of the future will stand for? Its clearly important enough to change the livery completely and drop the MP4 moniker and keep dropping comments about it pre-launch. Its also clearly being used as spin for sponsors too.
The livery is a case in point. Noone seems particularly happy with it. Zac's only point is that some part of the car shouldn't be black. Alonso seems unimpressed. We know what the orange stands for, what about the black and white? What about the speedmark? Why not tell us what it all represents?
Zac is sold to us as the commercial genius yet he seems distinctly uninvolved in key publicity related events. He has no input until the end on the livery. He is told by Matt Bishop what to say at the launch when surely he should be masterminding the message going out to the press? Why is he not involved in shaping the product he is supposed to sell? Why doesn't he tell the programme what his plans are for McLaren post-Ron?
How are major decisions made at the team? Neale's pre-season post-test speech is made to sound as if the decision has been made to leave Honda already, perhaps it already had. Was it Brown, Boullier and Neale who made the decision? Was it the shareholders who pushed it onto them? Was it combined? And what exactly does Boullier manage apart from the drivers?
As for Honda I disagree with the criticism of the personnel made on this thread but one massive failing hasn't been mentioned at all. At no point before the engine was fired up in Barcelona did anyone from Honda tell anyone at McLaren "things aren't looking good, we're missing targets". Expectation management is key when you have a disaster on your hands and the McLaren response would have been different had they been dripfed updates over the winter however unpleasant that would have been. Utterly shocking mismanagement of partner relations for which even if the engine had been great in the end they deserved being dropped for. The only alternative I can think of is worse, and that is that the engine was absolutely fine and appeared to be on par with Renault, Ferrari and Merc on the dyno but only turned out to be a dud on the track. That is an alternative I refuse to believe.
