Mclaren Honda 2015

[Jef Patat]

Alonso, Button set for back-of-the-grid start
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alons ... grid-start

The seventh engines will be fitted for Friday practice and, due to lengthy checks that Honda wants to conduct afterwards to check on its performance, it is expected to give the drivers their eighth engine from Saturday onwards.

[max_speed]

FP1 is done and dusted and so far i cant see any improvement brought by that 3% power increase. Sauber will gain arnd 0.4 seconds by Ferrari PU upgrade. only plus point is though upgraded engine ran reliably, unlike previous PU upgrade.

[ChrisF1]

I don't think the engine did run reliably - Button had a loss of power a minute before the end of FP1

[Thunder]

There is an Autosport+ Article (or Interview with EB) that is supposed to be very informative. Anyone have Access to it? Would love a quick summary.

[mclaren111]

GP 24/7:

HONDA DISAPPOINTED AS ENGINE BOOST DOES NOT MATERIALIZE

As for how to proceed in Belgium from Saturday, Alonso confirmed that both he and Button will have yet another new power unit fitted, setting the pair up for more competitive outings in Singapore and beyond.

“For Saturday what I expect is to try not to do too many kilometres, achieve the 107 per cent and return to the garage,” he said.

Testing only it seems to me

[Webber2011]

There is an Autosport+ Article (or Interview with EB) that is supposed to be very informative. Anyone have Access to it? Would love a quick summary.

There's a lot more in the article, but this is by far the most important section.

"We knew that Spa would not suit us," McLaren racing director Eric Boullier tells AUTOSPORT. "We are not at the level of power of the big teams. But it is not just power, it's more complex, it is [energy] deployment [as well].

"If you can use your MGU-K [properly], that's roughly 150bhp [extra]; if you can't it's 150 horsepower less. Today we don't have the most powerful ICE, we can't use our MGU-K like the others; we are suffering every race, but here it is worse than ever."

Spa's long straight exacerbate Honda's problems.
The problem is that Honda's MGU-H is not sufficiently efficient to recover enough energy from the exhaust system to help the MGU-K in giving the power unit its extra boost of electrical energy for long enough to run competitively on a circuit at which the driver spends around 65 per cent of the lap at full throttle.

"The MGU-H for us is not capable like the others to recharge the battery and support the MGU-K," explains Boullier.

"We have the limitation of 4Megajoules per lap, so we burn our 4MJ, but when we burn them we still have not finished the lap, and then it [the ERS deployment] stops working.

"The ICE is better, and looks reliable so far, the biggest hurt is that we can't use all of our electrical power on the lap."

The bad news for McLaren fans is that Boullier says there is no chance of improvement in this area until the winter, because it will cost Honda "too many tokens" to make the changes now.

Autosport Link

[max_speed]

engine issue for alonso in Fp3. Honda had made mockery of mclaren's reputation. half season gone and they don't have a reliable PU and in interviews they talk about chasing ferrari power unit and podiums.they dot look like a engine manufacturer but look like a roadside workshop.

[FoxHound]

engine issue for alonso in Fp3. Honda had made mockery of mclaren's reputation. half season gone and they don't have a reliable PU and in interviews they talk about chasing ferrari power unit and podiums.they dot look like a engine manufacturer but look like a roadside workshop.

To be fair, McLaren have been in decline for at least 3 years now...Regardless of what Honda have done this year.

[Sixbarboost]

As a die-hard McLaren fan since 1973 with the M23 and Peter Revson, the situation is almost unbearable,
being 25 km/h down in straighline should mean about 150 Hp off Mercedes, how is that even possible?

[Thunder]

Thanks Webber2011, that just confirms that the PU can be as powerful as the Ferrari (as Arai said) in absolute perfect cicrumstances for a very short Time. Of Course that is totally useless in every practical Application, so i think they use less ERS every Time to have at least something for the entire Lap. And Boom, we're still a LONG ways off of the other PU's......

Well, at least there's Marussia so we're not dead last. I fully expected Spa (and Monza too) to be painful, but not THAT bad. It's frustrating. All hopes on Singapore it seems.

[max_speed]

Thanks Webber2011, that just confirms that the PU can be as powerful as the Ferrari (as Arai said) in absolute perfect cicrumstances for a very short Time. Of Course that is totally useless in every practical Application, so i think they use less ERS every Time to have at least something for the entire Lap. And Boom, we're still a LONG ways off of the other PU's......

Well, at least there's Marussia so we're not dead last. I fully expected Spa (and Monza too) to be painful, but not THAT bad. It's frustrating. All hopes on Singapore it seems.

i salute you as most optimistic guy among all of us. everytime i read post from you it seems things gonna be alright but i know its not gonna happen, i think alonso/button should hang theirs boot now and save some hard earned respect over the years.i don't get the fact, honda was aware of Mercedes engine and still produced this piece of ---.when you know your competitor's product you come up with a better spec product its plain simple thing. looks like they have big ego and dent even analyse properly strengths of mercedes engine. so sorry to see 2 world champions playing the role of guards.i hv lost all hopes after this upgrade, you dint speak big when you dint have big balls.

[Thunder]

Well McLarens Definition of "alright" would be at least fighting for Big Points and Podiums, so no, pretty sure even the following Races won't be alright. And yes, i do feel absolutely sorry for FA ans JB. But on the other side you have to admire their positivity and seeing that they and Eric Boullier seem to be very realistical in the Interviews tells me there is more to come from the McLaren side (Merc Style Frontwing at Singapore......).

I don't know what i should expect from Honda but i think we can be sure the best they can get is Renault Level this year (let's hope their Russia Update sucks ^^). I said it before, i tend to ignore Arai. Either something is lost in Translation, selectively quoted or incomplete plus to me Arai should not be allowed to talk to the Media. He clearly doesn't have the skills to manage the Situation in Media regards.

So the only Interviews i take seriously are the ones from Alonso, Button and Boullier. And all of them seem to believe that Singapore is their best Chance for good Points finish this Year. That's exactly what i hope too.

I am totaly aware that this can be seen as very optimistic but hey, i'm just not the kind of Person that gives up that easy. It will take Time but i hope they will get there.

[monsi]

The bad news for McLaren fans is that Boullier says there is no chance of improvement in this area until the winter, because it will cost Honda "too many tokens" to make the changes now.

Autosport Link

Too many tokens ? If so what dreadful judgement. Who cares if they start at the back because of penalties, if they can then carve their way forward because of superior pace ! They will get great TV coverage for their advertisers, and we will be on the edges of our seats seeing Alonso cut his way through, hoping for a podium.

[damager21]

I think this year is a write off and so far McLaren has been fooling us fans by showing false ray of hope. They did the same last year and repeated the same this year as well. Race after race milestones were called out which they never met. All PR talks I believe.

Post summer break, Honda was believed to bring an updated engine which will close the gap to Mercedes. What did we see today? If anything, the gap has only increased. I think there was No real need for Arai to make a statement that the power of new engine was similar to Ferrari. What he did was misled the fans through his bold talks.

After Friday, the stance has changed where the position being taken is that Honda ICE is good but their Energy recovery system is generating limited output. In effect, the current Power unit is crap and we will have to wait till 2016 or most likely 2017 for McLaren to be competitive again.

Look at RedBull, despite all the animosity and sour talks in public against Renault, they both have managed to work together and improve their package to a respectable level. All this without using a single token upgrade till date. Honda has utilized 5 tokens and outcome is that we still have an engine which is worse than Renault.

As a fan McLaren fan, it is upsetting to see a team which has two World champions start from back of the grid. I think if McLaren has any respect for its fans, they must stop all this PR talks quoting major breakthrough, podium finish, etc.

[FoxHound]

Eddie Jordan said on BBC that Honda wanted a 2016 entry but Mclaren stipulated 2015 involvement.
Anything official on along these lines?