2016 McLaren F1 Team - Honda

[Andres125sx]

Is people still ignoring the chassis compromise McLaren did in Monaco to compensate the weak PU?

Well did you see that mclaren for the first time went a double monkey wing in monaco, no other team went for this they did went for extreme donwforce

No, they didn´t

CLKGTR just posted this on McLaren thread:

"Because of this straightline speed story we can't develop what we call the 'dirty downforce', so we have to have a very aerodynamically efficient car," Boullier explains.

"When we have more power this will be easy to use and exploit.

"Mercedes develop their car around the fact that they have a very powerful engine. It's more difficult to do what we do. The day we can [go] their way we are going to catch up straight away."

From Autosport

Not only that, you say the downforce was compensated

No I never said that, I said they didn´t go for extreme downforce, but for efficient one to compensate a little bit their lack in power

which i proved is totally wrong

What did you prove? I´ve only read assertments by your side, with no quote or source

then can you explain why williams running the most powerfull engine mercedes struggled for pace in monaco, and please dont say they were running low downforce, they obviously can run high downforce according to your arguments because they had the mercedes, yet they struggled. like i said, william pace was horrible, because they suffered the same issues as mclaren , understeering problems, and that is down to mainly chassis, suspension setting and aero, tyres

Agree but, what´s the reason you talk about Williams? We´re talking about McLaren, Williams perfomance is irrelevant to the discussion.

As a personal opinion, Williams has lately went for a low drag low DF setup, and that really hurt them in tracks like Monaco. This season is not that extreme, but still not comparable to other teams.

Also, their chassis is not the best obviously, and I´d add Massa and Bottas are not a match for the top teams drivers (Alonso, Vettel, Button, Kimi, Ricciardo...)

[techman]

Agree but, what´s the reason you talk about Williams? We´re talking about McLaren, Williams perfomance is irrelevant to the discussion.

As a personal opinion, Williams has lately went for a low drag low DF setup, and that really hurt them in tracks like Monaco. This season is not that extreme, but still not comparable to other teams.

Williams performance is very relavant to this discussion, last year william struggled for performance in monaco, they already knew this, so it make sense for them to add more downforce this time around, and they had one full test in barcelona prior to this monaco race. It does not hurt william to add downforce knowing that they have a mercdes engine, it makes perfect sense and it was also reported by rob smedley about adding extra downforce for monaco in 2016 monaco gp due to previous years problems, however william struggled again, the point iam trying to make is that its not about adding extreme downforce but getting the balance right through efficient downforce, which redbull perfected it. good efficient downforce through Aero, chassis, suspension set up, and getting the tyres to work all make up a good balanced car around monaco. both william and mclaren lacked it in monaco, i hope mclaren get it sorted out in hungary, which is a circuit that very smiliar to monaco, if they cant again, dont expect points, or good race pace, if the race stays dry and with no misfortune for other top drivers.

[McG]

Very interesting and what I thought all along.

Maybe the mods can go through the thread and delete or correct all who were blaming McLaren for having a high drag car. Absolute nonsense that has been disproved several times but people still seem to hate on McLaren.

Andres... I wouldn't be so argumentative if I were you. You were one of those who got it wrong many times. I don't see you as a McLaren supporter anymore as you took Honda's side.

Honda need to prove themselves to gain anywhere near the passion and support that McLaren get.

[Sayeman]

Very interesting and what I thought all along.

Maybe the mods can go through the thread and delete or correct all who were blaming McLaren for having a high drag car. Absolute nonsense that has been disproved several times but people still seem to hate on McLaren.

Andres... I wouldn't be so argumentative if I were you. You were one of those who got it wrong many times. I don't see you as a McLaren supporter anymore as you took Honda's side.

Honda need to prove themselves to gain anywhere near the passion and support that McLaren get.

Comeon,Mclaren is puny compared to a giant like Honda and Honda is not just about cars. I'm sure Honda has more compassionate supporters many times more than Mclaren's fanbase, the number of people defending Honda in this forum should give u a good idea.

I am sure you know Honda makes bikes too and they are da*n good at it. People still fondly remember the wild NSR500 or the all conquering RCV211V. Can't remember any Mclaren product coming even close to that, maybe the MP4/4 but that's because of Senna more than anything.

Not arguing with the fact that Honda needs to improve the PU but the chassis is nothing to write home about either unless you believe in Boulier's fairy tales.

[BeardedAce]

Maybe the mods can go through the thread and delete or correct all who were blaming McLaren for having a high drag car. Absolute nonsense that has been disproved several times but people still seem to hate on McLaren.

Ahem, Montreal? I remember the British commentators completely ignored the fact that Mclaren were running high downforce and decided to bash Honda's lack of top speed anyway.

[godlameroso]

It was actually the fact that Honda got back into F1 that made me start paying attention to McLaren. Well there's still some hope, there are still 13 races and 5 months worth of season left. They've improved massively, I wish they had this car last year, they'd be doing quite alright. Hopefully now with the new turbo and some races under their belt they can push a little more in the race and only be a second off Mercedes in race pace. So far they've been ~1.7 seconds off the pace with brief flashes of only being .7 down towards the end of the race when they no longer need to save fuel as much and can charge the ERS.

[Andres125sx]

Very interesting and what I thought all along.

Maybe the mods can go through the thread and delete or correct all who were blaming McLaren for having a high drag car

Who said that?

Maybe you´re confused with Canada race, there they used a wet/high drag setup, but nobody ever said, or at least I never read anyone saying McLaren have a high drag car

Absolute nonsense that has been disproved several times but people still seem to hate on McLaren.

Yes, those who said that I´ve never read hate McLaren

Andres... I wouldn't be so argumentative if I were you. You were one of those who got it wrong many times.

Yes, I get wrong many things in F1, frequently. That´s one of the reason I enter F1T because here I can learn many things asking and discussing.

But I´m afraid I´ve never learnt anything from you, so maybe you should start acting like myself, asking and discussing before making such bold statements...

I don't see you as a McLaren supporter anymore as you took Honda's side.

Honda need to prove themselves to gain anywhere near the passion and support that McLaren get.

At least you got this right, I´ve never been a McLaren fan, actually I like Honda better, I´ve owned some of his bikes and they were the best bikes I´ve ever had, toghether with the ktm 125sx wich made my nick.

It is McLaren who need to prove themselves they´re at Honda level, generally speaking, and we´ll see in 2017 without tokens who need to follow who

[DiogoBrand]

This "McLaren needs to prove themselves", "Honda is bigger than McLaren" debate is useless and irrelevant.
The thing is: Honda has an underperforming power unit. They probably have a good idea of what to change but are hindered by the token system. It's very likely that for next season they'll be pretty close to Mercedes.
Even though Honda's PU isn't any good in comparison to the others, McLaren hasn't shown any concrete proof that they have as competitive of a chassis as they say they do. They've already been beaten by not only the top three teams, but also STR and FI on "chassis sectors" and "chassis circuits". And that's not a good thing for a team that claims to be able to build such incredible chassis since last year.
If they really want people to see how good their car is, why not let someone else run with Honda engines? I'll tell you why: because Honda may not be performing now, but McLaren knows they need Honda more than Honda needs them, and if they're not gonna be succesful as a works team they'll definitely not be succesful as a customer.

So all we can do from now is wait. I'm pretty sure that with next year's regulations Honda will catch up to Merc quite quickly, and then it's up to McLaren to prove they really can put their money where their mouth is and produce competitive cars.

[Stalker1]

I personally do not see the meaning behind all that speculation here without the facts and actual first-hand data! Wazari and some other guys posts are interesting to read, because they have at least some verified data and knowledge about the project.

[BeardedAce]

Some of the people here weren't as appreciative as they should've of Wazari, specially the ones on the Mclaren's side.
One guy even complained about Wazari getting upvotes.

[PlatinumZealot]

It is very annoying when people keep using the monaco race to benchmark Mclaren's chasssis. Really guys? If you were paying attention the MP4 had trouble to turn on its tyres.... Eric said it again and again; the car had great mecahnical balance and agility (a good measure of the chassis) but they made a mistake in the aero setup and they didn't get the tyres switched on. You can't blame the chassis for that. Remember even RedBull could not get the tyres switched on in Baku all becsuse the level of downforce they chose to run. Does that mean that their chassis is bad? No. It just mean the setup was compromised.

Let us wait for silverstone or even hungary. It should be easy to turn on the tyres there. No need for mcalren to compromise the downforce at that track.

[SameSame]

I fully agree that they couldn't switch their tyres on but it was more the fact that they didn't show any pace in any of the sessions that was disheartening . RBR qualified well in Baku and finished 6th and 7th on merit despite the power deficit, so its not as if they had no pace at all .

I was looking at Austria last year and Alonso just got into Q2 and qualified 15th. Their progress is absolutely massive from last year. Finishing 11th on two very power sensitive tracks means that things might not be too bad in Austria and hopefully another Q3 appearance.

[Strax]

Everybody seems to be aware about the engine token system, but there are great restrictions on the wind tunnel hours, as well as the CFD hours.

No team brings track specific packages anymore like in the old days.

This should clear up a lot of things and wrong assumptions.

[mrluke]

It is very annoying when people keep using the monaco race to benchmark Mclaren's chasssis. Really guys? If you were paying attention the MP4 had trouble to turn on its tyres.... Eric said it again and again; the car had great mecahnical balance and agility (a good measure of the chassis) but they made a mistake in the aero setup and they didn't get the tyres switched on. You can't blame the chassis for that. Remember even RedBull could not get the tyres switched on in Baku all becsuse the level of downforce they chose to run. Does that mean that their chassis is bad? No. It just mean the setup was compromised.

Let us wait for silverstone or even hungary. It should be easy to turn on the tyres there. No need for mcalren to compromise the downforce at that track.

Surely the whole point of the chassis is to get the most out of the tyres and as a secondary concern - be a mounting point for everything else.

If Mclaren have tyre problems that is their issue. Mclaren and TR are pretty even on both chassis and PU.

[DiogoBrand]

It's sad to see that there's still people that think they can be fanatic and intelligent at the same time.