Ron is back in control of Mclaren

Honda's strong suit has always been engines, McLaren's chassis. Ron is a proven winner.
Sounds like a strong combination.

 

It's not easy to turn the team around overnight. But i'm quite happy Ron is back. Seeing Mclaren sliding off the pace, from what they were, their resources at their disposal, etc..not a nice situation to look at.

Just remember how Williams were...

 

agree with this analysis

 

Love or hate Ron, he has been a prominent figure in F1, and his return to McLaren as the boss can only be a positive for the company.
I am not personally a fan of his but I do respect his achievements and he is a winner.

Good luck to him and McLaren.

 

To be fair, there's not much in common with today's engines and the engine designs from the early 90's. The capacity is different, the piston heads are different, the engine angle is different, the RPM, HP and torque curves are different, the engine mapping is different, the ignition technology is different and on and on.

Even the engines from the late 90's and 2000's evolved a good deal from the early 90's. I'd be surprised if much learning from Honda's involvement is still part of the engine design of today, or yesterday for that matter.

As far as McLaren, I suspect they will do well with Honda power.

-F

 

IMO is was the dropping of the v12 and moving to the v10 that made them winners again. Better packaging, less cooling and fuel usage made the difference ... there was nothing wrong with their engines but it is the overall package that wins races.
Pete

 

It's not so much building on any particular previous experience as the high level of their engine design skills in general.

 

OK but at some point the design delivered by those skills is made obsolete by new designs. I just don't think it's accurate to say input from Honda can still be seen in the current (or even yesterday's) engine design.

A lot has changed over the last 20 years. And I'm not even talking about the change to V8 power.

BTW, I'm not knocking Honda. I think they're great and am very happy to see them back in F1.

-F

 

They were good in the 80s, but the latest Honda F1 engines were not that great. Past success or failure doesn´t mean anything.

I think they´ll be fine, as long as somebody at Tokyo doesn´t get tired of signing checks. And without title sponsor, McLaren is going to need a lot of them.

 

They've been among the very best at designing and manufacturing engines of all configurations for many, many years.
I'm not saying that they have had an influence in the design of contemporary F1 motors rather that when they bring a new motor to F1 its likely to be quite good.

 

+1

Given their resources, it damn well should be too!

Cheers,
Ian

 

Lenny Setright contended that the only company that made better road car engines than Honda was Ferrari.

Having owned both I'm not sure that Honda is number two.

 

From Pitpass.com interview with MD Jonathan Neal of Mclaren

"We won't be announcing a new title partner when we launch our new MP4-29 on January 24th," he confirms, "but our roster of sponsors remains the envy of the pitlane. For example, Hugo Boss has been with us for 33 years, Tag Heuer has been with us for 29 years, Mobil 1 has been with us for 20 years and SAP has been with us for 16 years. More recently, we've added equally important blue-chip partners such as Santander, GSK, Johnnie Walker and Hilton.
"Moreover, and importantly, McLaren Group is a private organisation, not a PLC," he adds. "As such, whereas in previous years we've sometimes shown a very healthy profit, running to tens of millions of pounds, we don't have shareholders demanding that we do that every year, as PLCs do. Indeed, our shareholders don't take dividends - instead they're motivated by the desire to make the McLaren Group an even greater and even more successful powerhouse of technical innovation than it is already. The recent success and exciting potential of McLaren Automotive and McLaren Applied Technologies prove that.
"So, bearing all the above points in mind, I'm pleased to say that McLaren Racing will have a larger operational budget available to it in 2014 than it's had in any previous season in McLaren's history.
"We're in good shape," he adds with a smile.

 

Funny, but I'm more inclined to believe when McLaren say this than when Lotus dies. (Err, does. Excuse the Freudian Slip).

 

As you know I rate Honda very very highly, I broke down in Porsche back in the day, I asked the recovery man AA, what car he hardly ever goes out to, in other words breaks down, Honda was the reply, over engineered he said brilliant motors.

 

Remember when Brawn bought the Honda F1 team? What was the biggest change to that car that turned it from a midfield runner in to a winner? ... replacement of the engine with a Mercedes unit.
So yes I do believe Honda make great engines, but they struggled with the 2.4 ltr v8 ...
Pete

 

I will give you that their V8 wasn't the best on the grid, but that engine change was brought about by necessity not preference. Had the team stayed together they wouldn't have needed the Mercedes power and would have still had their Double Diffuser advantage. A lot of what-ifs as to whether history would have stayed true, of course.

>8^)
ER

 

Yes, I often wondered what would have happened had it been a Honda engine, however you have to remember Brawn got away with a loop hole in the diffuser rules allowing a hole in it IIRC, Mosley let them get away with it, so hard to really tell what overall difference it would make.

We do know Brawn and Button had a job holding on to the lead as the season progressed.

 

The great part about it was the Merc engine just slotted in, and went great guns in chassis not prepared for that power plant. I think...

 

Got ya. I agree. They bring a lot. High engineering with high quality. Can't beat that.

But for as much as we (rightly) knock Ferrari for their technical problems, they are good at building engines. Maybe even the best.

-F

 

Not quite. I recall reading an interview with Brawn where he said the size of the Mercedes engine was significantly different than the Honda engine the car was designed for, and that the last minute deal to use Mercedes meant that the engine fit into the chassis and bodywork was a hack job. Brawn stated that the compromised aero as a result lost them over 0.5 seconds per lap compared to the Honda bodywork.

Given the advantage on track they had with the compromised chassis/aero with the Mercedes engine, imagine how much greater domination they'd have had with the original aero!

 

I'm inclined to believe that was Ross blowing smoke TBH...... I vaguely recall the same interview, and thought BS at the time too.

I'm not sure now, but believe the mounting points to the tub & 'box were mandated back then, as they are now. OK, it may have been slightly 'longer' or 'wider' I guess, but it can't have been *that* much of a change.

Cheers,
Ian

 

Given how tightly everything is packaged under the engine cover, especially to manage the heat, you have to believe there was some merit to what he said though.

>8^)
ER

 

Oh, yes indeed, didn't mean to imply otherwise.....Fer sure, a *royal* PITA at that late stage!

I'm certain the 'packaging' and cooling nerds had some very long nights. I'm just not quite buying the 'half a second' BS.

And it's not like the 'good old days' and switching from, say, a flat12 to a V8......

Cheers,
Ian

 

Despite earlier concerns of McLaren missing out on the first test of the season, they Tweeted today that their car has passed all required tests for the FIA.

https://twitter.com/McLarenF1/status/425603671746174976

Well that's a bit of good news for Ron.

>8^)
ER