Makes no sense to make your own motor if someone gives you one for FREE Only Ferrari and Mercedes make their own engines neither will win this years WC
Ya know, I thought that too for many years. His ego wanted to do it - Nothing wrong there if you're a team principal. However, I now think he's decided differently. Too much of a PITA. He's still done pretty well though. Cheers, Ian
Ron is pursuing the smart course with great success but when he got into the F1 game it was not a route to riches.
IMO If I was in his shoes and seen Ferrari reach a valuation of 7-8 billion I would think there maybe room for McLaren to get half way there also. Weather that happens or not doesn't matter. What matters is one has to try and grow the company as best as one can
He's given it quite the shot and I won't gainsay him anything. My only point is that without making his own motor there's one unclimbed hill and its got to be in the back of his mind.
I don't think he has the extra 10-15M a year for an F-1 motor Plus they don't have the resources to do an in house motor for a road cars I agree with you that he probably has a desire to do so But reality dictates otherwise
It would be really exciting if Ron convinces Honda to make a bespoke road car engine I have owned several NSX's thru the years their V-6's were amazing Now if only they made an awesome V-8 revving to 10k for McLarens road cars
True even today for normally aspirated engines in mass produced vehicles But Honda refuses to put there name on a V-8 Hence the lack of a true luxury car in their portfolio
Irony is Honda refuses to make V-8's on environmental grounds But their arch enemy Toyota has a better environmental image due to Prius and such and They also makes Billions selling V-8's ??
Best I can figure is that Honda still has "The Other Guy" corporate mentality that goes back to its roots. Like McLaren they've had great success but haven't quite closed the deal.
+1 I'm not gonna say it keeps him awake at night, but I am certain it gnaws at him a little.... The abused stepchild, maybe?...... However, classifying 'em as bush league prompted a little research. Turns out that in the past 50 years of the WCC there's been just two identical car/engine combinations..... Ferrari and Renault. That's it! The rest are all bush league!....... Cheers, Ian
I guess so..... "Once a spanner man, always a spanner man"........ Even when Ron's involved! Cheers, Ian
As I see it, McLaren swapping to Honda in 2015 works out well for Mercedes in so far as it gives them four front running cars to gather data from, to evaluate the drive-ability and reliability of their V6 turbo engine and give them a good baseline to use for the 2015 season. Loosing McLaren from their portfolio will be a disappointment naturally, but I get the feeling it was almost an inevitable eventuality. Relations between McLaren and Mercedes have seemed a bit strained to Me over recent years and I get the impression that McLaren have been waiting for a decent alternative to become available. The fact that they are staying with Mercedes for 2014 says to Me that they either have a contract signed for that season that they can't get out of, or they have concerns about the Honda V6 turbo and would rather another team do all the debugging of it (most likely it's the former of the two). As for Mercedes, I'm not sure it makes that much difference to them. They don't get any obvious credit for their part in a McLaren victory any more (usually they're mentioned almost as an afterthought by McLaren), and I suspect they will continue to make the same number of engines regardless (and supply another team that will be less of a rival to them than McLaren were).
I am sticking with Berger, Brundle, many others, and now good ol Nigel, guys who drove all the different engines, the turbo era, 3.5l V-8's, 10's and 12's, and the Mercedes V10. All these guys who actually drove the cars say 1986 was THE YEAR. I bring this up because I watched this last night, nice interview; [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU61Nkb6pi4]Racing Driver: Nigel Mansell - YouTube[/ame] For sound nothing beat 1986 imo, (the explosions, the tone, the vibration) even though for NA this is nice; [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_U3cbydv9Y]OPEN PIPE SYMPHONY - Diva - YouTube[/ame]
As I said earlier, I'm sure there was some great racing in 1986 and I'm sure the cars sounded pretty good. I wasn't alive to see it, unfortunately. All the sound clips I've heard, at least to me, show V12 > V10 > V8 > Turbo. Nigel, Brundle, Berger et al. can say whatever they want but the fastest cars were the 2004 machines. Simple as that. There may have been more powerful cars and there may have been harder cars to drive, but until something comes along and beats their records, they are king.
