McLAREN-HONDA may reunite in 2014

tranquility2k9

Podium Finisher
Some very interesting news on the horizon. The German website auto-motor-und-sport has started to speculate and report that talks are happening behind the scenes between McLaren and Honda, with regard to McLaren using Honda V6 engines from 2014. This would bring back quite a historic partnership and quite frankly makes me quite excited. The Honda engines have always been very good in my opinion and I think they could make a very competitive engine for the 2014 regs (remember their turbo engines in the 80's?).

You can view the article here:- http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/...s-mclaren-honda-vor-dem-comeback-4100663.html

- you may like to use Google Translate and copy/paste the text in for auto translation:- http://translate.google.com/

My interpretation is that McLaren's contract with Mercedes runs out at the end of 2012 and for 2013 they will have to pay Mercedes for use of their engines. They want to find a new long-term engine supplier and as they do not seem to want to make engines themselves, the partnership with Honda would make sense.

Thoughts?
 
McLaren's deal with Mercedes for engine runs out at the end of the 2015 season.

If McLaren part from their long relationship with Mercedes Honda may step in as the economy may be better then, plus the new regulations may offer them a chance to build a more competitive engine. However it has also been speculated that McLaren may try and manufacture their own engines.
 
McLaren's deal with Mercedes for engine runs out at the end of the 2015 season.

If McLaren part from their long relationship with Mercedes Honda may step in as the economy may be better then, plus the new regulations may offer them a chance to build a more competitive engine. However it has also been speculated that McLaren may try and manufacture their own engines.

I think you may be correct about 2015, but I think there is a clause whereby from 2013 onwards, McLaren have to pay Mercedes some significant amount of money for their engine use for the last 3 years of the deal.
 
The question had to arise eventually - how long would Mercedes tolerate being beaten by one of their customer teams?
There were rumours that with McLaren building their own engine for the MP4-12C road car it would lead to the logical step of building their own F1 engine but Martin Whitmarsh said it wouldn't make financial sense.
Therefore Honda would make sense as it would allow them to get back into F1 with an established front-runner with whom they have already had considerable success without having to worry about the other costs associated with actually running the team themselves. It may also go someway to repairing their tarnished reputation left behind from their dreadful earth after their last few years as a constructor.
They could of course stay with Mercedes as a paying customer, although that depends on Mercedes themselves.
 
In all seriousness, a Mclaren Honda tie-up would be fantastic.
a) it would bring Honda back into F1 and help safeguard the Japanese GP
b) nostalgia
 
Cool hope this happens. If it does we might see Mclaren hopefully going back to the beautiful red and white livery of the 80's. Don't get me wrong i do like the silver/orangeyred colour scheme. But there's something about the red and white livery that i love so much.
 
Don't know weather thats good or bad, I was quite looking forward to McLaren making their own engines, but they were very succesful with Honda, but that was around the time I was born - things have moved on
 
Funnily enough, I made a very similar suggestion back in May, in another thread on new engine suppliers:


Hmmm.

A Honda V6 turbo engine in a Mclaren perhaps?

Where've I heard that before?

1989_McLaren_MP4-5_Honda.jpg
 
I don't do nostalgia, Rose tinted specs may look pretty but they can sumwhat make the view a little hazy.

2014 New engine regs right? (anything beyond the phrases "this season" and "next season" is beyond me). Well its not as if its going to be much of a disadvantage compared to the current F1 suplliers then.

Wonder what Honda's habit of dumping teams, and sudden exits will do for negotiations. It does all seem a little bit of wild speculation to me, 2014 still is quite a long way off yet. Who knows what will happen between now and then. A nice way of getting a few hits on websites, nostalgia n all.

If there somesort of thread in this then what does it mean for McLarens own engine? Well that did seem to be a lot of speculation on conjecture in that too, without much being given away, for or against it by Mclaren. I remeber noting at the time its a huge step up financally, engineering and resource wise from building a sportscar engine to an Formula 1.

Another engine company in F1 is good however, although im not with the doomongers who think F1 will break with two engine suppliers when Renault and Cosowrth were looking a little sketchy, the late 60s and 70s didnt seem to suffer too much from it, variety is the spice of life.

I'd like to see Honda back in some form in the future, weather its with Mclaren or not.
 
If it is turbos that are coming back..surely Mclaren would the team HOnda want to team up with because of their history with the team and Jenson's marketability in Japan etc

I did think about this given the Mercedes is up to 2015 but there is no reason for Mclaren not to part with it given if they feel they will get a better advantage which I can see

With Red Bull tied to Renault , Mclaren is the only suitable team for HOnda... more importantly the engines could be exclusive use unless they arrange a deal with Williams with a driver clause like Sato again in one of the cars
 
the only thing that I remember is Honda do have a preferable driver which was the case at Williams and Mclaren

Williams - part of the deal was to sign Piquet and they thought he would be No 1 which did not happen and lead to their split

Mclaren - Prost was getting paranoid he felt Honda were given Senna more attention with more engineers etc

when it was BAR- HOnda it was not as clear cut who was team No 1 then except for 2004-2005
 
Question, when the new engine regs come wont the customer teams such as Red Bull, Toro Rosso Force India etc suffer because they wont get the full spec engines whilst the new engines are being developed, much like the satellite teams in Moto GP do.

On this basis it would make sense for McLaren to look ahead and either partner with an engine manufacturer such as Honda or make their own engines.
 
Personally I couldn't care less what badge was on McLaren's engines as long as it was competitive. The last thing McLaren needs is a couple of years of development hell with a new supplier.
 
Question, when the new engine regs come wont the customer teams such as Red Bull, Toro Rosso Force India etc suffer because they wont get the full spec engines whilst the new engines are being developed, much like the satellite teams in Moto GP do.

On this basis it would make sense for McLaren to look ahead and either partner with an engine manufacturer such as Honda or make their own engines.

Red Bull are the Renault works team as of a deal done earlier this year. Lotus (formerly Renault) are a customer team.
 
Thanks Ninja I didn't know that I thought Renault were having no involvement except as engine suppliers, like cosworth meaning both Lotus and RedBull would be customers, only.
 
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