Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[etusch]

If Redbull can win next year too it will be another first in sport I think.

They already have 4?

I mean Honda pu will be won a throphy after honda leave if it happens. If this happened before ok.

[Big Tea]

If Redbull can win next year too it will be another first in sport I think.

They already have 4?

I mean Honda pu will be won a throphy after honda leave if it happens. If this happened before ok.

They have not left yet though. Have they?
They more or less did with a car and Merc engine, but it was renamed

[etusch]

merc engine? if it is because of how it looks from outside very skinny comment.If outside were so important merc would not show it.Nobody would not show it.
if it because of merc engineers I don't think they will affect an ongoing development at sakura and when they start to affect it will still Honda layout otherwise it will be a start from scratch. Honda beat mersedes and you can not defile it by this kind of things

[bigblue]

Finding it a bit hard to follow what you both mean, but I think Big Tea is referring to Brawn GP winning with a Honda designed car, with a Mercedes engine plugged into it.

[Big Tea]

Finding it a bit hard to follow what you both mean, but I think Big Tea is referring to Brawn GP winning with a Honda designed car, with a Mercedes engine plugged into it.

I do. It was a Honda and it won the season after Honda left, with a Merc engine which was not the dominant engine then.
I would have loved to see it run with a Honda engine.

[Juzh]

Finding it a bit hard to follow what you both mean, but I think Big Tea is referring to Brawn GP winning with a Honda designed car, with a Mercedes engine plugged into it.

I do. It was a Honda and it won the season after Honda left, with a Merc engine which was not the dominant engine then.
I would have loved to see it run with a Honda engine.

Obviously that's not the case. Without mercedes engine Brawn would be in a much worse position in 2009. Some quotes from Newey in January 2010:

Speaking at the Motorsport Safety Fund’s Watkins Lecture at Autosport International, Newey said the team considered the switch because of Mercedes teams’ performance advantage in 2009.

"The Mercedes engine enjoyed a good advantage over the rest of the field last year. The lap time difference was significant – several tenths of a second. And when you have to find that kind of performance from the chassis, that’s quite a big ask.

"But in the end Brawn and McLaren blocked us from having the Mercedes engine."

https://www.autoracing1.com/pl/244259

[Big Tea]

Finding it a bit hard to follow what you both mean, but I think Big Tea is referring to Brawn GP winning with a Honda designed car, with a Mercedes engine plugged into it.

I do. It was a Honda and it won the season after Honda left, with a Merc engine which was not the dominant engine then.
I would have loved to see it run with a Honda engine.

Obviously that's not the case. Without mercedes engine Brawn would be in a much worse position in 2009. Some quotes from Newey in January 2010:

Speaking at the Motorsport Safety Fund’s Watkins Lecture at Autosport International, Newey said the team considered the switch because of Mercedes teams’ performance advantage in 2009.

"The Mercedes engine enjoyed a good advantage over the rest of the field last year. The lap time difference was significant – several tenths of a second. And when you have to find that kind of performance from the chassis, that’s quite a big ask.

"But in the end Brawn and McLaren blocked us from having the Mercedes engine."

https://www.autoracing1.com/pl/244259

Other than the Braun, Mclaren won 2 but RBR with Renault engines won the other 5, and it is generally agreed that it was the defuser of the Braun that gave it the performance.

[Juzh]

I do. It was a Honda and it won the season after Honda left, with a Merc engine which was not the dominant engine then.
I would have loved to see it run with a Honda engine.

Obviously that's not the case. Without mercedes engine Brawn would be in a much worse position in 2009. Some quotes from Newey in January 2010:

Speaking at the Motorsport Safety Fund’s Watkins Lecture at Autosport International, Newey said the team considered the switch because of Mercedes teams’ performance advantage in 2009.

"The Mercedes engine enjoyed a good advantage over the rest of the field last year. The lap time difference was significant – several tenths of a second. And when you have to find that kind of performance from the chassis, that’s quite a big ask.

"But in the end Brawn and McLaren blocked us from having the Mercedes engine."

https://www.autoracing1.com/pl/244259

Other than the Braun, Mclaren won 2 but RBR with Renault engines won the other 5, and it is generally agreed that it was the defuser of the Braun that gave it the performance.

Early 2009 mclaren was a mess, as everyone knows, it'd be like saying 2016 or 2020 mercedes engine was bad because marrusia/williams were last. I aint disputing brawn success was mainly down to DDD and generally more aerodynamically developed car, just that's it's unwise to assume switch to mercedes hurt them in way, when it was clearly an advantage.

[etusch]

Finding it a bit hard to follow what you both mean, but I think Big Tea is referring to Brawn GP winning with a Honda designed car, with a Mercedes engine plugged into it.

Oo. Sory I got it wrong. But he got me wrong too. I am talking about pu, not about chassis. This is something you don't need to be explained but that is what I had to do

[bigblue]

The Merc was hacked into the RA109, sorry, BGP001. The installation was far from optimal (higher cog than what was desired, if I remember correctly, perhaps refined later into the season somewhat). Obviously the Honda engine and car were designed around each other, and would have been a much better fit.

On the other hand, the Merc was assumed to be a better engine than the Honda, though I can't remember if that's peak power, fuel consumption or driveability. For what it's worth, I think the "consensus" at the time put the Merc ahead, a bit.

On the other other hand, who knows where the Honda engine would have been that season, Ross Brawn had no doubt given targets for the engine team, and a KERS system was developed for it.

Ther are some interesting articles about the development of the car and the KERS on the web (link 1, link 2). The RA-109 is discussed on the f1technical forum here.

I always wonder how the all-Honda car and engine would have done. Being completely unbiased, I'm sure it would have won handsomely

[etusch]

I can't remember at which point honda decided to leave but big probably they developed the engine which will be used with that car until some point, may be fully developed.
Was it not fully ready to race so honda didn't finish to development project or honda didn't want to produce it and sell to BrawnGp?
Was it ready to race but Honda didn't find selling it to Bgp fair, but didn't wanted to give for free too ?

[Big Tea]

I can't remember at which point honda decided to leave but big probably they developed the engine which will be used with that car until some point, may be fully developed.
Was it not fully ready to race so honda didn't finish to development project or honda didn't want to produce it and sell to BrawnGp?
Was it ready to race but Honda didn't find selling it to Bgp fair, but didn't wanted to give for free too ?

I think it was a straight Boardroom decision- we are out, gone NOW. The team was sold for £1 to save jobs at what was Honda otherwise I think it would have all been shipped home and put in a museum.

Even if the Honda engine was not the best on paper, I still think they would have given a good account of them selves.
Politics ruins sport.

[N21]

It was really weird that teams were allowed to upgrade engines because of reliability issues. Mercedes switched a bunch of engines and gave only Lewis an engine that was 630 grams heavier and was able to output more power than any other Mercedes engine on the grid, only after admitting that they have never had reliability issues. They upgraded 1 engine purely for performance gains, customer teams had no access to these levels of performance because this 1 engine differs from the homologated engine. How can all this be legal?

Despite that I wonder what Honda / Red Bull powertrains will do over the winter. The power difference between Honda and merc was noticeable at the end of the season. Surely Honda must be investigating the large plenum, right?

[Rodak]

It was really weird that teams were allowed to upgrade engines because of reliability issues. Mercedes switched a bunch of engines and gave only Lewis an engine that was 630 grams heavier and was able to output more power than any other Mercedes engine on the grid, only after admitting that they have never had reliability issues. They upgraded 1 engine purely for performance gains, customer teams had no access to these levels of performance because this 1 engine differs from the homologated engine. How can all this be legal?

Despite that I wonder what Honda / Red Bull powertrains will do over the winter. The power difference between Honda and merc was noticeable at the end of the season. Surely Honda must be investigating the large plenum, right?

I think if a Mercedes engined team had decided on a new ICE they would have received the upgraded unit, all 630 grams and whatever. But would that have made any difference for them in the Constructor's race where prize money is determined? It certainly would have cost a team some money to get a new engine and then they would have faced a grid drop. Bottom line: the new upgrade would have been provided but it would have cost money and not really made a difference so Mercedes customer teams didn't opt for new engines.

[mzso]

Finding it a bit hard to follow what you both mean, but I think Big Tea is referring to Brawn GP winning with a Honda designed car, with a Mercedes engine plugged into it.

I do. It was a Honda and it won the season after Honda left, with a Merc engine which was not the dominant engine then.
I would have loved to see it run with a Honda engine.

Obviously that's not the case. Without mercedes engine Brawn would be in a much worse position in 2009. Some quotes from Newey in January 2010:

Speaking at the Motorsport Safety Fund’s Watkins Lecture at Autosport International, Newey said the team considered the switch because of Mercedes teams’ performance advantage in 2009.

"The Mercedes engine enjoyed a good advantage over the rest of the field last year. The lap time difference was significant – several tenths of a second. And when you have to find that kind of performance from the chassis, that’s quite a big ask.

"But in the end Brawn and McLaren blocked us from having the Mercedes engine."

https://www.autoracing1.com/pl/244259

The quotes don't support you. Newey compares to the Renault, which was notoriously down on power.
And since he's talking about 2009 it wholly excludes Honda.
Not only that, but if Honda remained they could have continued developing the car and engine. Preventing others from catching up by around half-way through the year.