Current McLaren

Arguably one of the big teams in Formula One but lately they don't seem to be able to get the basics right.
Some of their strategy and decisions in the last few years has left more than a few observers scratching their heads.

Just a few for starters:

• Leaving Kimi out on a badly flat-spotted tyre, resulting in it exploding on the last lap.
• Leaving Hamilton out on tyres so badly worn they were down to the canvas; Bridgestone themselves demanded that McLaren bring him in and McLaren refused, keeping him out for a few more laps. That decision arguably cost Hamilton the first rookie WDC and is one which will haunt him and McLaren for the rest of their days.
• Not sending Button and Hamilton out to get banker laps in during Q1.
• Sending Hamilton out on used tyres in Q3, with rain forecast, meaning it would be impossible to set a fast lap time on his second attempt on new tyres.

Their major updates seem to send them further down the grid, instead of challenging for pole positions and wins. As the season progresses they tend to get worse before getting better, by which time it is generally too late.

It's often said of them "write them off at your peril", but is this necessarily true?

The last time they won the WCC was in 1998 and their last WDC was 2008, before that 1999.
Their days of regularly winning championships seem to be well and truly behind them.

It's all well and good coming up with reasons why they haven't won championships.
The fact remains though, they have won just one WDC in the last 12 years.

So where to now for McLaren?

(I wrote this in rather a hurry so I will flesh it out when I have more time.)

 

[Bill Boddy]

Well, well, McLaren score as many points in the Hungarian GP as Mercedes. Who forecast that?

 

[teabagyokel]

Bill Boddy - Well, I always thought there was a chance. Of Hamilton crashing into Rosberg...

 

[Grizzly]

Autosport

Boullier admitted it was frustrating when memories of McLaren-Honda's previous success skewed expectations of the present partnership, in which Honda is only in its first year back in F1 after a six-season absence and is a year behind its rivals with the hybrid V6 engines.

"If you compare with the 1980s that is wrong for me, because Honda joined McLaren [in 1988] after five years of Formula 1 - and today Honda decided to come back into F1," he said.

Umm, we didn't Eric, perhaps you should take a look at what your marketing team was up to over the winter.

 

[Greenlantern101]

That is such smelly bullshit isn't it. Fucking Boullier pisses me off. Honda had almost 2 years run up time. And if we are taking previous form into account which seems to be Eric's angle then Honda left F1 as 'Brawn' winning the championship with a stunning car, yet seem to have returned to B.A.R form on re-entry.

Yes we did have expectations, Honda are one of the biggest most successful motorsport manufacturers in the world and you brought an engine from a Lada. You had almost 2 years to develop it. There are no excuses. You fucked up. Admit it and stop making pathetic excuses.

Boullier and McLaren have been so full of fucking bullshit this year I really have totally lost all respect for them. And that comes from a long term fan back from the Senna Prost days.

If you are shit, admit the mistakes, fix them, and be great again. Don't hide behind PR spouting French corporate muppets. Remember what you are, where you came from and what you want to be.

 

[Il_leone]

Grizzly

I wonder if Ron Dennis has stitched Eric Bouillier up to deal with all the press about how woeful the Mclaren is whilst he hides somewhere

Frankly Mclaren and Honda need to work a miracle to sort themselves out but it seems Arai-san and the current Honda board does not seem to understand moves at a very fast pace to be competitive

back then in the 1980's the board loved F1 racing and wanted Honda to the best where as today it seems more like a marketing excercise

Honda loved Senna because he would really push them hard to succeed and they were very willing and able to turn around a new engine in 3 weeks once with more power than Renault V10s

 

[The Artist.....]

According to Honda, the McLaren chassis is now masking the performance of the Honda engine, which is now "better than Renault's engine", and which will be "on a level with Ferrari" in the next race...

The McLaren chassis is lacking in mechanical and aero grip... Apparently....

 

[Il_leone]

I sense trouble between the two parties now that Honda have decided to blame Mclaren

 

[Dash Racing]

Well, Mr Arai, if your engine wasn't a piece of excrement, there wouldn't be problems with aero and chassis, because they would have had sufficient runtime and power to be able to test that to the limit, you insufferable black bellied little man.

 

[soccerman17]

You people (and McLaren) need to be patient. Yes the Honda engine or McLaren chassis sucks but they've already shown considerable improvement this season and should be even better next. If they want to get back to the top they need to put trust into Honda as I don't think its going to happen as a customer team for Merc, Renault, or Ferrari.

Its frustrating now, but the only thing worse for McLaren than playing the blame game with Honda is ditching them all together.

 

[The Artist.....]

You people need to be patient.

You people?!?

Who's being impatient? The fact that McLaren are claiming that the engine is the problem, and Honda are claiming that the chassis is the problem is far more worrying than any performance on the track; if they are each blaming the other, then it is almost guaranteed that they are not going to be looking for solutions to their own problems! (Or at least not as intensely)

 

[Dash Racing]

Oh, believe me, it's not about patience for me, I just think Mr Arai is saying everything he can to avoid taking any blame. Yes, you lose face for admitting you screwed up, but you lose more face for messing up and not fixing it, and blaming everyone but yourselves.

 

[teabagyokel]

Yes, be patient. Looking at the current trendline, we can be confident that McLaren will be scoring 340 points per race by the end of the season.

Who said extrapolating was irresponsible?

 

[Il_leone]

Arai-san has totally misunderstood and underestimated what is expected when Honda came back in F1. It's ridiculous given Honda's history in motosport ( two wheels and four wheels), what was he thinking ?

The question is what have Mclaren been doing all this time to make sure the partnership was going to work and keep an eye on HOnda. Who was put in charge at Mclaren to do this ? Is it Eric Bouillier's job or Ron Dennis's or even Jonathan Neale

 

[FB]

I blame the drivers

 

[Kewee]

FB.....tut tut tut....

 

[Il_leone]

FB That always works and would be the Ron Dennis way.. or maybe ALonso will blame Ron first

 

[RasputinLives]

I blame Martin Whitmarsh.

 

[Il_leone]

RasputinLives You're agreeing with hardline Hamilton supporters then ?

 

[Kewee]

I'll put my head on the block as always and say McLaren/Honda will be a marriage made in heaven, as it has been in the past. The reason is obvious, McLaren are a truly great technological company that have had a multitude of successes including rising to the very peak of F1 and Honda are quite simply one of the giants of the automotive industry with immense success in every type of motorsport they've become involved in. To believe they will fail in ludicrous, that won't happen though their success will take time.

 

[teabagyokel]

Kewee - I do agree with you, but do Dennis and Boullier? The most likely failure of this partnership, long term, is either party bailing.