Mclaren Honda 2015

[Tommy Cookers]

often my posts have defined direct output gains, eg exhaust recovery, as free energy and indirect ones as 'free' energy
once recently I confused myself and wrote 'free' when I meant free
(having stated that no-one is getting mgu-h recovery greater than the 120 kW that can be absorbed by the mgu-k motor action)

[Facts Only]

Lets not talk the best engine of 2014

McLaren were completely handicapped by Mercedes in 2014, with different fuels and very limited packaging info - example their exhaust opening in the MP4-29 was way too big for the engine, because Mercedes never sent them updated info until the block turned up in the last bit of testing.

While Merc were testing during the first test McLaren were seeing the engine for the first time.

No offence but this is all absolute rubbish.

McLaren handicapped by Mercedes? They were handicapped by their fuel partnership that's no HPP's problem.

Seeing the engine for the first time at the test? I can assure you that Maclaren had the CAD for the engine long in advance how do you think they managed to bolt there hydraulic pack or gearbox to it? Or route the fuel and coolant pipes? They were at HPP testing their gearbox on the PU long before testing started as well.

[Thunder]

Of Course they had dummy Engines and some CAD Data, but for example for the First Test Merc introduced a much smaller Exhaust Manifold (so the Log Manifold was not there from the start) and McLaren didn't know about it until the Engines turned up at the Test. That's why you could fit a Suitcase in the Sidepods at McLaren but strangely not at Merc, Williams and FI. Also they changed something on the wiring Harness for the Test and McLaren lost almost the entire first Day to modifying their Loom. And i'm sure there was mor of such Things throughout the Season.

Little Things that didn't exactly Help.

[mrluke]

I would be very surprised if Mercedes supplied the exhaust manifolds. Typically the teams do this themselves, for obvious reasons.

There was no anti mclaren conspiracy, mercedes and mclaren had a very good relationship.

I dont understand the Andrew Benson claim that the ICE output of 700bhp is added to the 160bhp from the mguk and a further 30-40bhp from the mguh. The "extra 30-40" either comes out of the ICE or the MGU-k it cant be anywhere else? That same article starts off by saying that Honda are 300bhp down but then finishes up saying they are more powerful than Renault from the ICE. So if the max available from the MGUK is 160- that would mean the renault ICE would have to be over 140bhp down which is somewhat unlikely.

[Wazari]

I would be very surprised if Mercedes supplied the exhaust manifolds. Typically the teams do this themselves, for obvious reasons.

There was no anti mclaren conspiracy, mercedes and mclaren had a very good relationship.

I dont understand the Andrew Benson claim that the ICE output of 700bhp is added to the 160bhp from the mguk and a further 30-40bhp from the mguh. The "extra 30-40" either comes out of the ICE or the MGU-k it cant be anywhere else? That same article starts off by saying that Honda are 300bhp down but then finishes up saying they are more powerful than Renault from the ICE. So if the max available from the MGUK is 160- that would mean the renault ICE would have to be over 140bhp down which is somewhat unlikely.

Are you saying that Williams, Force India and Lotus are all designing and supplying their own plumbing from the cylinder heads to the turbocharger on the Merc PU?

[Thunder]

Teams did their own Manifolds in the NA Engine Era, but with these Turbo Hybrid PU's that isn't really possible anymore.

[alexx_88]

I dont understand the Andrew Benson claim that the ICE output of 700bhp is added to the 160bhp from the mguk and a further 30-40bhp from the mguh. The "extra 30-40" either comes out of the ICE or the MGU-k it cant be anywhere else? That same article starts off by saying that Honda are 300bhp down but then finishes up saying they are more powerful than Renault from the ICE. So if the max available from the MGUK is 160- that would mean the renault ICE would have to be over 140bhp down which is somewhat unlikely.

When he's talking about the 30-40hp extra from the MGU-H he's probably referring to the special engine mode where the MGU-H spins the compressor, not the turbine, thus reducing backpressure and increasing power output. However, there's no way the power increase on the ICE is equal to the power required to drive the compressor as that would make turbocharging pointless.

Key term is average power output over a lap. As the ICE is pretty much independent and similar between manufacturers, it's all in how much of the total lap time you're able to drive the MGU-K at peak power. This will be limited by either the K getting hot or by how much energy is/was harvested and it will make more of a difference on power-bound circuits such as Spa, Monza, Canada etc.

[XRayF1]

Of Course they had dummy Engines and some CAD Data, but for example for the First Test Merc introduced a much smaller Exhaust Manifold (so the Log Manifold was not there from the start) and McLaren didn't know about it until the Engines turned up at the Test. That's why you could fit a Suitcase in the Sidepods at McLaren but strangely not at Merc, Williams and FI. Also they changed something on the wiring Harness for the Test and McLaren lost almost the entire first Day to modifying their Loom. And i'm sure there was mor of such Things throughout the Season.

Little Things that didn't exactly Help.

I believe the aerodynamics issue was more related to a MCL decision pre-season (to be safe on the overheating, thus reliability side), which simply backfired, due to the reliability of the MercPU.
And we all know from other instances how difficult it is to completely revamp aerodynamics mid-season.
MCL surely have the capability to do so, but considering they would change the engine to Honda anyway, why would they?

Secondly, please also consider who made these accusations against MGP the first place. We know him all - Mr. Dennis.
And I would say he had other ulterior motives than praising the MercPU, wouldn't you agree?

[mrluke]

I would be very surprised if Mercedes supplied the exhaust manifolds. Typically the teams do this themselves, for obvious reasons.

There was no anti mclaren conspiracy, mercedes and mclaren had a very good relationship.

I dont understand the Andrew Benson claim that the ICE output of 700bhp is added to the 160bhp from the mguk and a further 30-40bhp from the mguh. The "extra 30-40" either comes out of the ICE or the MGU-k it cant be anywhere else? That same article starts off by saying that Honda are 300bhp down but then finishes up saying they are more powerful than Renault from the ICE. So if the max available from the MGUK is 160- that would mean the renault ICE would have to be over 140bhp down which is somewhat unlikely.

Are you saying that Williams, Force India and Lotus are all designing and supplying their own plumbing from the cylinder heads to the turbocharger on the Merc PU?

On review the teams definitely do their own intake plumbing due to intercooler placement but all seemed to run the log exhausts suggesting they are merc supplied.

[trinidefender]

I would be very surprised if Mercedes supplied the exhaust manifolds. Typically the teams do this themselves, for obvious reasons.

There was no anti mclaren conspiracy, mercedes and mclaren had a very good relationship.

I dont understand the Andrew Benson claim that the ICE output of 700bhp is added to the 160bhp from the mguk and a further 30-40bhp from the mguh. The "extra 30-40" either comes out of the ICE or the MGU-k it cant be anywhere else? That same article starts off by saying that Honda are 300bhp down but then finishes up saying they are more powerful than Renault from the ICE. So if the max available from the MGUK is 160- that would mean the renault ICE would have to be over 140bhp down which is somewhat unlikely.

Are you saying that Williams, Force India and Lotus are all designing and supplying their own plumbing from the cylinder heads to the turbocharger on the Merc PU?

On review the teams definitely do their own intake plumbing due to intercooler placement but all seemed to run the log exhausts suggesting they are merc supplied.

Exhaust manifold is a homologated item. The intercooler coolant lines are not. Teams make their own intercooler lines but Mercedes is required by the regulations to provide the exhaust manifold.

[Thunder]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/analy ... -headache/

The "The engine/chassis battle" Part is interesting (i wonder which Team they have the Data from). But overall sadly nothing we don't already know.

Edit: Another rather long Article:
http://www.somersf1.co.uk/2015/09/mclar ... n-and.html

[j.yank]

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/analy ... -headache/

The "The engine/chassis battle" Part is interesting (i wonder which Team they have the Data from). But overall sadly nothing we don't already know.

Edit: Another rather long Article:
http://www.somersf1.co.uk/2015/09/mclar ... n-and.html

From Matt Somers:"with the Turbocharger intrinsically linked to ICE performance, which in turn requires the MGU-H to be operating at the optimum level. In terms of peak power / bhp it would be easy to draw comparisons between the different powerunits, the problem is that the RA615H doesn't provide the power consistently. A shortfall in the Energy Recovery System (ERS) means that they don't have enough energy to deploy around the course of a lap."

All pundits don't give answers to some very important questions: How much exactly is the generation power of MGU-H? How much energy MGU-H consume during the lap? How much power Honda MGU-H is missing compared to other teams? I think that everyone is focusing on the size of turbine-MGU-H-compressor but without even attempts to guess the answers you cannot go with far reaching conclusions what McLaren-Honda should do.

[alexx_88]

I've seen the power required to spin the compressor rated at ~40HP iirc and the numbers mentioned on this forum were 40-80 kW for the MGU-H. The exact value would probably be one of the closest guarded secrets for any PU, as it offers critical information about how much power they are able to harvest from the turbine.

Regarding the energy consumed by the MGU-H while spinning the compressor, that's only needed when at lower RPMs and, if we combine that with the quoted power requirements of the compressor (40HP), then the total amount is probably quite low. I imagine it's driven by energy harvested directly from the MGU-K, instead of going to the ES. For example, driver begins throttle application before corner exit, MGU-K is in generator mode as not all of the torque is needed and part of that energy can go into spooling up the turbine and compressor.

[Writinglife]

I'm getting a bit confused with the McLaren threads... I thought this was for discussions about the team as a whole, with a specific thread for discussions about the car, but there seems a huge amount of crossover?

[Thunder]

Honda F1 Movie 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRDluXz ... e=youtu.be