Mclaren Honda heading for a divorce for 2018 Mclaren & Mercs deal for 2018 is a possibility https://www.f1today.net/en/news/f1/226038/reports-suggest-mclaren-and-honda-to-split
About time !! McLaren is completely discredited by now, and right at the bottom of the ranking. It may become what Ron Dennis tried to avoid: a customer team. But at least the team may survive and rebuild from this painful experience.
So does Alonso stay then with regards to pay structure? and moving up the grid a couple of positions now the Merc unit will possibly be in the Mclaren?
Worst deal Ron Dennis made in his lifetime. He's lost all his sponsors For three years they've been a back-marker He's been fired An American is running the team If they break the contract Honda can sue And now they are right back with Mercedes again
Who'd have thunk it? Really did anyone foresee that Honda would make such a mess out of it? In retrospect a disaster, at the time it was McLaren's best option.
At this point I will take them beating RB. Desperate times. F1 needs Ferrari AND McLaren to be competitive. While I'm being wishful, I'd love it if Merc leaves in 2020 and we get back to Ferrari and McLaren fighting for the championship. As things should be.
Imho McLaren should stay with honda. Honda will eventually get it right even if it's not until a engine formula change. At that point,... McLaren is a works team for an engine mfg. Why give that up to be another current day Williams or Sauber?
And can McLaren afford to leave Honda? Instead of free engines and top driver salary paid,... they get to pay for BOTH... with no sponsor on the horizon (presumably)
I call bull****. Might as well ride it out till 2020 when there are newer, simpler, engines. +1 they can't afford it. They'll have to sack Alonso, find a sponsor (worked out for them well since 2014), and an engine...which they can't win with.
I'm actually more concerned what happens to Alonso than what happens to McLaren. But, after decades with Acura, I am disappointed as hell with Honda.
I think before getting rid of their(Mclaren) bread-and-butter(Honda), Zak has been/or is in the process of working out multiple deals with sponsors to make up for the possible financial loss of the "Honda-pays-everything-package."
Honda should loose any lawsuit brought against them. They failed in results and also admitted they underestimated the job.
Happy you are so confident. Ron Dennis couldn't land a sponsor for multiple years BEFORE they went tits up with Honda. Not all that hard to talk to sponsors especially when you invite them to an F1 race. Convincing them that writing you a check for $50M/year is in their best interest well that's almost certainly a little bit more tricky.
I said this as soon at the Sauber- Honda deal was announced: Mac is splitting with Honda. They had an exclusive contract and said nothing. They need a face saving exercise. Alonso is running McLaren more than Zak Brown now.
Except.... it looks like twice this year Alonso intentionally parked the car to make Honda look bad. He parked the car once with a few laps left because he was running last. Rumors are there was nothing wrong with the car. Then in Russia he refused team orders to try to start his stalled car and just walked out. AND... Alonso has been running with this mouth for 3 years against Honda and McLaren never told him to knock it off or in any way penalized him. If they can show that McLaren was trying to shame Honda to do better, they may have a pretty good case.
There's hardly any dignity left to save for Honda, and 'works Sauber' doesn't exactly have a brand building ring to it.
Your faith in Honda is admirable... but I don't share it. When Honda powered BAR from 2001, through when they bought out BAR in 2004, through to when they suddenly quit after 2008 - Honda couldn't build a winning F1 engine (aside from Button's mastery of changing conditions at Hungary 2006, credit to Button in spite of Honda's sub-par engine). The last great Honda engines were in the back of Senna's McLaren, 26 years ago. Since then, they proved that they couldn't duplicate that 1980s/early 90s success in the 2000s, and they've shown that they are MUCH further off the pace since 2015. I honestly do not believe that Honda is capable any more of building a competitive F1 engine. They management styles, philosophies are very different than they were in their winning days when the company was run by racers and engineers, and the current management refuses to give up the reins even after the embarrassing showings of the last 3 seasons. There are zero signs that modern Honda is capable of eventually getting it right. Modern Honda won't change, and so modern Honda will not win in F1 again. McLaren needs to acknowledge this fact and get out of the deal - I would hope they have competitiveness clauses in the contract which give them escape routes!
The article is old and hollow with no facts. So what they talked ... we all knew that 3 months ago. Pete
Sorry..but you seem to be stuck in the 80s. Honda at best was mediocre since they came back to the fold in 1998-1999.