OK guys... the blame falls on Honda. I'm sorry, it does. Put the Merc back in the Mac and it's a mid to upper pack contender. The fact is Honda has given them a very late, underpowered, unreliable powerplant that totally screwed their testing program. McLaren engineers are some of the best. The team still has one of the best organizations. Are you really going to say Button and Alonso are 5 second slower drivers than Hamilton? Ummm... nope. The problem is mainly at Honda. The question is -- can they pull it out. My guess is not anytime soon.
Remember what happened at Brawn F1? They pulled the Honda engine out and installed the Merc and immediately rocketed to the front of the grid. Now makes me wonder if Honda have lost it. Like when Porsche tried to make a F1 comeback with a 3ltr engine based on the old 1.5 v6 x 2 ... utter failure. Pete
Taking the blame is one thing but deserving the blame is another ball game. Ron is the real boss and was the one who let Martin wet his feet (tossed him into the fire) and suffer the wrath. Whitmarsh is a suit and had no place running a racing team much less a F1 team, Ron needed a "fall guy" and found one. Would you want someone who has to ask "how do you lit the grill" cook your burger?
Good points, Pete. I'm starting to wonder what I was thinking when I confidently expected a competitive McLaren-Honda car. All the best, Andrew.
You were *far* from alone in that belief. Many here have much crow waiting. Some said they had a years advantage..... I always maintained they were actually a year behind. But, I'll be honest, neither did I expect them to suck quite so badly! As for Brawn's engine switch, we'll never know what it would have done with Honda power, but the belief at the time anyway was their advantage was down to the double diffuser rather than the lump. Cheers, Ian
Unless the Honda engine was an absolute crap, the Brawn would have been better with it than with the Mercedes, as they admitted that the last minute swap forced them to do a quite crude packaging and rear suspension and couldn't use Mercedes KERS.
It will be interesting to see what honda's problem is. That they should be caught so flat footed is surprising. I suspect that whatever it is they'll either be able to put it right quickly or be out of contention all season long. I suspect that if they were allowed a reasonable testing regime it would have been identified and fixed early on.
Just proves, as did Toyota (and many others), that you can't go into F1 with a half baked effort ... Full on, knowing what you are doing or you quickly look like a fool. Pete
Another race where they blow up on the parade lap some some guys will be considering hari-kari. I'm sure this is NOT what Honda thought would happen 2 years ago when they went down this path.
I doubt Honda thought they would relive their glory days from the '80s and start winning "fresh out of the box". I could be wrong but I doubt Ron would have gone this route without a long term commitment. I am glad they are back though.
My hope agrees with you. If they're running reduced power because of issues and only 3 seconds off the pace, I want to see what happens when they get full power.
McLaren are actually ahead. In 3 years most teams will be this slow, such is the current evolution of F1.
Will be interesting to see the battle for the last place on the podium by the end of the season with probably 4 different engines competing.
At the end of the day though, do any of you guys think McLaren-Honda will win a race this season? Because that's pretty much what the team has been touting.
