McLaren to switch to Honda engines

[FB]

I'm not worried Wombcat, teams rise and fall. The real concern for McLaren has to be the loss of the major components which drive an F1 team forward, such as Paddy Lowe, Pat Fry and Lewis Hamilton. All these elements are the difference between them being a team challenging for Championships rather than race wins and I don't see Honda making a difference unless they get some quality (sorry Jenson fans).

 

[The Pits]

If one were to be really critical, they have never really recovered from the loss of Newey, despite winning the WDC in 2008. Raikkonen, Montoya, Coulthard (?!?!?!) and Alonso have all been through the doors, and exited with no titles to show for their endeavours.

 

[Wombcat]

FB my thought was mainly that it's way too early to say that McLaren are a team that's falling. They're the second most succesfull team of the last 5 years.

 

[Il_leone]

The Pits
The loss of Newey and a few other engineers poached by Red Bull completely disrupted their 2006 season partly down to DC leaving as well and suggesting in discussion with Horner to get Newey on board to be a front runner off course the money offered helps

The problems at Mclaren with Newey began when he did famous u-turn where he agreed to join Jaguar in 2001 and then changed his mind

They never really recovered from that combined with the problems of Mercedes building fragile engines as well as Michelins not being up to scratch with Bridgestone

 

[Il_leone]

I think 2007 actually could have been the start of another immensely dominating period for Mclaren but the team simply imploded

No doubt if Alonso was with the team still they might have a couple of driver titles whilst battling Hamilton but the atmosphere was too tense and fierce to deal with two big egos in the same team.

Something had to give and it was Alonso who decided to jump first
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Now Honda love to focus on one driver usually Brazilians in the 80's and 90's it was first Piquet then Senna .

The only serious driver I feel they can use as a lead driver for the future is Hulkenberg.

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

I'm hearing rumours that 2 other teams have expressed an interest in taking Honda engines on in 2015. Once I get concrete evidence I'll name those two teams .

 

[Brogan]

Or to put it another way Wombcat, the first of the losers

 

[soccerman17]

Simon Pagenaud linked to a Honda F1 engine test. Pagenaud drives a Honda-powered IndyCar and does so very well, and is supposedly one of the best testing and development drivers in the business.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I'm hearing rumours that 2 other teams have expressed an interest in taking Honda engines on in 2015. Once I get concrete evidence I'll name those two teams .

Any news of that rumour yet...

 

[Il_leone]

HammydiRestarules

The sugggestion is that Red Bull may be interested because Honda will be based near Milton Keynes which is not far away from Red Bull

I would think two of the three back of the grid teams would be interested if they can get a cheaper engines than their current deal - usually with a driver that can pay for the engines

 

[Mephistopheles]

Il_leone my reply was tongue in cheek because that post is over a year old...

 

[Shogun]

Honda has stated in the past that for '15 they would only be supplying engines to McLaren, so good luck finding any concrete evidence.

 

[RasputinLives]

Honda will be supplying engines to Repsol in 2015.

....that is Moto GP though.

 

[cider_and_toast]

The biggest problem McLaren will face is that the back of their car has been packaged around the Mercedes engine. Next year we will be in the second year of these rules with no major changes (as far as I'm aware) planned then all of the teams will be looking to develop their current packages based around what they have this year. McLaren on the other hand will have to do a significant amount of work on the back of their car to incorperate the new engine. This could prove to be a good thing as this years chassis isn't exactly setting the world on fire but it could also set them back because they are having to develop from the ground up while other teams will already be half way there in terms of understanding the balance of their cars.

 

[Il_leone]

cider_and_toast
Mercedes are a little bit concerned that Honda engineers will have access to their engines by examining the back of the Mclaren

The point you're making alludes to the fact that the chassis and engine combination is more important in this era as we can see the results that Renault powered teams are getting compared to Mercedes works team

 

[Bill Boddy]

I think that Honda will be much more interested in looking at the McLaren engine data than the back of the car.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Exactly my point Il_leone. Mercedes has not only managed to design a powerful unit but packaged it with the split turbine / blower unit, in a better way than other teams have managed. As always, while part of Red Bulls problem is the Renault unit not being anywhere near as sharp as the Merc, it's also how Newey likes to package his cars with a really tight backside (hmmmm - ed).

A lot of teams are now going to look at how Merc have packaged their engine and follow suit, I would presume that Honda would have more than enough time to add any lessons learnt gleaned from this season, which as Bill Boddy has pointed out, will almost certainly be on a desk somewhere by now at Honda HQ, but at the same time, Work normally to design next years car is normally underway by now. So you would think that the designers at McLaren would already have the Honda engine dimensions and would be sketching out there plans.

 

[F1Yorkshire]

There's also the possibility that the McLaren chassis has already been designed with the Honda in mind so may not be ideally suited for the Merc, Either way I'm not expecting performance from McLaren-Honda right from the start so we should be expecting another fallow season from them next year.

 

[Shogun]

I dont know how much Merc engine data McLaren would really give Honda. McLaren has had a very good relationship with Merc and I cant see them just selling Merc out and giving secrets away.
You never know what might happen in 5 years and you dont want to burn your bridges.

 

[Mephistopheles]

cider_and_toast Brawn managed to shoe horn a merc engine into a car designed around a Honda with great success this is the same thing only in reverse.