How far behind is McLaren ?

Surtees had a problem with Ferrari's chief engineer at the time. Enzo and Surtees admitted later on that they should of stayed together longer and both could of had more success.
I like Surtees, he was hands on.

 

McLaren drivers 'happy with the car' - Dennis
2015-04-05
Apr.5 (GMM) McLaren supremo Ron Dennis is confident the team can emerge from the early troubles of the new Honda era.

He is quoted by France's L'Equipe as saying the bright side of the early bad reliability and lack of pace is that drivers Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button are happy with the MP4-30 car.

Referring to Malaysia, Dennis said: "Both drivers were happy with the performance of the car in the fast corners and under braking at Sepang.

"There are many positives," he added, "even though neither we nor Honda can be satisfied, but we are working hard.

Source: GPGuide.com

"We want to win races and titles and I'm sure we will succeed sooner than people think," said Dennis.

Team boss Eric Boullier agrees: "We are not yet in the points, but we are in front of Force India even though this is not our goal.

"But for now, rather than focusing on performance, we are looking at the progress we are making with respect to winter testing, and the difference is huge," he added.

 

Happy...Hmm. Depends how the question was asked. If they asked their drivers: ''Would you be happier driving the Manor or the Mclaren?'' I can understand this reaction. Or ''we're going to say you're happy with the car and you can't say otherwise or we'll slice your penis off''.

The car looks a pig to drive. The chassis is ****, there's no other word for it. Both in Australia and Malaysia the car did not do what the driver asked it was all over the place. The engine is terrible. Sure it's the first year but it's barely finishing races and has little power. Their aero department is probably the only thing that is not terrible on that car.

 

For many it is tempting to think that once Honda figure out their PU, Macca will be competitive. But, until Honda are able to turn the wick up to full flame, we won't know how the well chassis handles they way that Honda delivers torque and HP. But if last years chassis is any indication, Honda could deliver a PU equal to Mercedes and still be mid-pack or worse.

I expect that, come September, we will begin to see the blame game hit full stride with Dennis and Nando both fanning the flames , and Honda execs in Tokyo losing their patience.

 

The engine isn't turned up all the way, and they were running midpack already in Malaysia. Once they sort out their reliability problems, I don't think they will be challenging Mercedes for wins this year, but I do believe they will be finishing higher up the standings well into the points.

 

Unless the rest of the teams stand still, the Honda engine at full wick will not suddenly allow the Mclaren to go ''well into the points'' barring a lucky race here and there where luck or very good strategy at lucky moments play a big factor.

If you look at how the car behaves at low and medium speed corners it's absolutely dreadful. That chassis is ****.

 

Okay you've both made solid closing arguments . I guess my wanting to encourage copying in the "sport" is clouding my judgement and yes I have to agree that theft is not copying.

Okay moving on.
Pete

 

Or is that indicating terrible throttle control of the Honda PU. Last years Ferrari looked a handful because of this and is much better this year because this has been resolved.

Anyway you guys are right, McLaren Honda are not looking good at all but I do hope they keep moving forward. F1 needs more quality teams as while it is always a 2 team race, we need the other teams not to be miles away.
Pete

 

I think you'll find that Stepney supplied pretty much all of Ferrari's technical information rather than just "some" information.

Coughlan was found to be in possession of what was referred at the time as being "Ferrari's F1 Bible"

I believe the term you're looking for is: "scrupulous employee".

The copy shop employee, on seeing the current Ferrari F1 cars secret information in the hands of someone living in Woking (home of Ferrari's biggest rivals - McLaren), realised that it was more than likely that that person should not have this information and so they did the right thing and reported it, just in case.

That's called having integrity and it's a fine quality to have! (It's also something that Ron Dennis seems to lack!)

You are correct, nobody at McLaren instigated the theft of the Ferrari information, it was offered to Coughlan out of the blue by a disgruntled Stepney who was annoyed about how Ferrari were developing their F1 car.

However, as a McLaren employee, what Coughlan should have done was to have refused to accept the information and reported Stepney's offer to both his bosses and to Ferrari.

Instead, Coughlan saw a unique opportunity to discover all of Ferrari's F1 secrets and to make use of the stolen information.

Coughlan knew that he should not have the information, he knew it was stolen, and he knew by using it he was not only cheating, but he was also breaking the Law.

Again you are correct when you say Ron Dennis did not know about the initial transaction, and in the first hearing he declared that Coughlan was working on his own with this information and that no one else at McLaren knew he had Ferrari's information.

However, it transpired that Coughlan was not the only one at McLaren who was aware that they had Ferrari's information, other designers knew it to, and eventually Ron Dennis was made aware of it from Alonso who was using it to try and blackmail him to get an advantage over Lewis Hamilton.

Now Dennis was aware of what was going on, rather than reporting it to the FIA and Ferrari, he tried to cover it up, denying all knowledge still.

Fernando informed Charlie Whitting that McLaren had the information and so a second hearing was called after the FIA instigated a full inspection of all of McLaren's computers.

Dennis' denial of knowing anything of what was going on fell apart when he mentioned in the hearing that Ferrari were using a moving floor and then went on to explain the details as to how it worked. This information could only be known by either reading the Ferrari information or talking to someone who had read it.

Dennis was hoping to drop Ferrari in the s:censored:t by revealing their floor secret but instead dropped himself in it!

Nice attempt to sugar coat what Coughlan did but that's all just complete bulls:censored:t!

Coughlan was cheating and he knew it! He wanted to gain an advantage by using anything in the Ferrari information that he could (and let's not forget that this information contained not only technical specifications and designs of their car, but it also detailed their race tactics for all situations and their working procedures!).

Yes they couldn't use anything from the information on their current car, but they did use some of it on their following seasons car!

No, the next McLaren was not a copy of the Ferrari - That would have been a tad too obvious!

However, the FIA on inspecting McLaren's new car found three things on it that were all but identical to those that Ferrari had! - Not just in the principle of how they worked, the parts were almost identical in size, shape and design! And Ferrari could show that it had all come from their technical information!

As I understand it, some of the parts were copied so directly that they were actually interchangeable between the McLaren and the Ferrari!

Both Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone seriously hated Ron Dennis, and Max wanted to see Ron Dennis gone (which eventually did happen for a while).

The initial punishment that Mosley wanted was for McLaren to be banned from F1 for life but even Bernie felt that was a bit too extreme given the amount of cheating that goes on in F1 and so it was decided that they should be fined $100Million instead.

What didn't help McLaren was Dennis lying to the FIA about how many at McLaren knew about the stolen information, and his continual lying about how much he really knew about it.

Had he just owned up about the stolen Ferrari information as soon as he became aware of it, dealt with Coughlan and the others involved by sacking them, and then issued a public apology to the FIA and to Ferrari, then the punishment would have been a lot less (Both Bernie Ecclestone and Jean Todt have stated that if only he had apologised at the time and dealt with the matter properly then both the FIA and Ferrari would have been satisfied!)

Ron being Ron though, he just couldn't bring himself to do it!

He honestly thought he was protecting his beloved team, a team who had been telling the World for years that they were the only honest team in F1, that they never cheated as the other teams did, that they never used team orders as other teams did, that they went racing "the right way! - With honour!", but the actions of Coughlan and Dennis' continual lies on the subject blew that reputation to smithereens!

The problem is, Ron Dennis still hasn't learnt to be genuinely honest about things when it comes to his beloved team, as highlighted by the Alonso/Barcelona accident.

He publicly stated that nothing had gone wrong with the car (when Alonso said later on that the steering seemed to lock up for an unknown reason), and he stated that Alonso had not been unconscious, nor had he sustained a concussion (both of which were later confirmed as having happened).

Dennis has the best interests of his team at heart and wants to protect it from criticism at all times, the problem is, he's spent a lifetime telling the World how his team is better than all the rest, and how they are the ultimate at F1 engineering, when the reality is that McLaren are no different to any other team on the grid! - And for Ron, that's a bit too hard to accept!

Stepney's demise was, and still is somewhat strange, and to this day his family have My deepest sympathies.

When it comes to Spygate, he was upset with Ferrari and wanted to punish and humiliate them, and help see their demise on track, but he went the wrong way about it! He should have quit his job and then reported what he knew to the FIA rather than giving the Ferrari information to Coughlan.

As for Coughlan: As far as I'm concerned, he should have been banned from F1 for life! - end of!



Your entire post is an attempt to water down what happened in the Spygate case and make it sound more trivial than it really was, but hat's simply not right!

Those involved were guilty of cheating at best, and in some cases, guilty of breaking the Law!

Out of all the punishments handed out in the Spygate case, the biggest one of all was the one handed out to Ron Dennis!: A man proud of his perceived integrity was found to be a liar and untrustworthy!

The only punishment that could have made that worse would have been if his beloved McLaren had been banned from F1 for life, that would have killed him! (quite possibly literally!).

I'm about as anti-McLaren as you can get, but I can appreciate and respect Ron's love of McLaren,and I can understand why he does the things he does for his team (whether they are right or wrong), and whilst I take great joy in their current struggle, I'm glad that they were not banned from F1 for life because that really would have been unfair!

 

+1, they were similar to Red Bull on race pace at Malaysia, so I don't think there's any question they'll be in the points, of course we know Red Bull/Renault aren't going to stand still but I'm betting Honda has more headroom. As to podiums/wins, not this season (imo).

 

Red Bull had severe brake issues so not a good reference point on where Mclaren is on pace.

 

Good, nearly great summary, except - when Alonso tried to blackmail Dennis in Hungary, by advising that Ferrari information was still being used within McLaren, Dennis didn't try to cover it up - it was Dennis himself, not Alonso, who called Mosley directly to advise of the new information. That comes from Mosley himself, who has confirmed Dennis version of those events in multiple separate interviews and documents (including the FIA hearing that followed).

Also, with respect to the illegal hinged Ferrari floor - that was shared by Stepney to Coughlan separately long before the bulk of the tech info was passed, and was shared to the FIA as a whistle-blower notice immediately upon receiving it, not long after the opening Australia race. I don't believe that McLaren or Dennis was hiding knowledge of the hinged floor, and I don't believe that Dennis having knowledge of the hinged floor was indicative of any knowledge of the full technical dossier that Couglan received from Stepney many weeks later.

 

IIRC, Dennis was pretty smug about "having information" on the the workings of the floor and insinuating its illegality. He didn't need to know HOW much info McLaren had, he needed to ask why McLaren's ethics policy was allowing nearly real-time transfer of data (via txts, etc.) from a competitor to his team. The fact that the driver(s) (and reserve driver) knew about this is pretty damning evidence of how wide-spread the knowledge of the wrong-doing going on was known about inside the team.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand and current news, I understand that historically McLaren-Honda was a formidable player, but based on recent history, it's hard to see where all the assumed potential for a jump to the top of the heap is coming from. So they got the aero guy that worked for genius Newey - but he's not Newey. And they got Honda, who have not exactly set the Indycar world on fire with their turbo in that series, were nowhere in their last attempt at F1 and with one additional year of preparation are worse than the worst of the 3 other engine suppliers were last year.

So where's the optimism coming from? If this was Ferrari we were discussing, people would have had them buried a long time ago.

 

Then you aren't as anti-McLaren as me but I like your work

 

Wonder what Enzo would have said about Ron apart from "Garagista"

 

Will they beat 1980 ? Points were tougher to receive, however I don't think it will be close, they'll get 30 points this year.

 

Me too. But I gather others have worked that out already.

Maybe less of a cheat they say Enzo getting the last race of the GT season cancelled so Ferrari wins the Sportscar championship in 1960 something ...
Pete

 

McLaren expects performance dip in China | FORMULA 1 news | Motorsport.com
😂😂😭

 

So 17th and 18th again?

 

Lol. Just imagine if the course or medical car was Honda instead of Mercedes powered ... they would have to provide an extra exit for them half way around the track otherwise they would not get off the track before the "racing cars" caught them up ...
Pete

 

Reading several rookies talking about China "..looking forward to a new track..." makes me think the opening lap will be very interesting. Certainly these guys have done the track on simulators and can learn it quickly in 3 practice sessions, but with what, 5 or so rookies and a couple of slow cars (Manor/McLaren?), will be lots of fun!

 

Does anyone here think McLaren is really expecting a performance dip or are they just giving bad news then plan to surprise everyone with their pace?