Renault Sport Racing and McLaren Racing are pleased to announce they have agreed an engine supply partnership for the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons. The deal will see Renault Sport Racing supply McLaren with Formula 1 power units, while also establishing a close working relationship with McLaren’s engineers and technicians.
This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
Team: McLaren Honda Base: McLaren Technology Centre Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom Team principal(s): Éric Boullier (Racing Director), Jost Capito (CEO), Zak Brown (Group CEO) Technical director(s): Tim Goss, Neil Oatley, Peter Prodromou Website:http://www.mclaren.com/formula1
Race drivers: 14 Fernando Alonso 2 Stoffel VanDoorne
This thread is to discuss the 2017 Mclaren - Honda F1 TEAM
Last edited by Manoah2u on 06 Dec 2016, 22:26, edited 2 times in total.
"Explain the ending to F1 in football terms"
"Hamilton was beating Verstappen 7-0, then the ref decided F%$& rules, next goal wins
while also sending off 4 Hamilton players to make it more interesting"
Alonso isn't going anywhere, there's zero doubt that Mercedes will be very strong next year, but they won't be half a second ahead of everyone else not at first anyway.
Don't underestimate Honda's abilities, now that they know what to do, and a much improved McLaren chassis, they won't be fighting to get into q3. With the steep learning curve for the new breed of chassis, and the fact that RB, Mercedes, and Ferrari switched their focus to 2017 much later than McLaren, I wouldn't be so sure of anyone being dominant out of the box. Rather we'll see something similar to 2012, where there were a variety of different winners in the first half of the year and a clear hierarchy establishing itself towards the end.
I bet that without the Token restrictions, Honda will catch up quite a bit to Mercedes, in fact Ferrari and Renault probably will as well. All that's left is for McLaren to show that they've evolved from the recent past, where any rule change would have them chasing their own tail for years.
The McLaren was about .8 seconds off the pace of the Red Bull on average this year. We know for a fact the Renault engine is better, we know for a fact the Red Bull chassis is better. The McLaren Honda on average about 1.3 seconds off the pace of the Mercedes, we know for a fact the Mercedes engine in the Mercedes car is the best in the field, we also know for a fact the Mercedes chassis is better than the McLaren. What we also know for a fact is that the Ferrari engine is the closest to the Mercedes(but still not quite up to par), but we also know for a fact that their chassis is not as good.
Given what we know, we can assume that the McLaren chassis, as has historically been the case, is somewhere in the ballpark of the Ferrari chassis. I estimate then that the difference between a fully developed power unit and the one raced this year would be worth around another .5 seconds by itself, maybe as high as .7 with knock on effects, all it would do is put them on even footing with Ferrari.
Given that it's been obvious that McLaren didn't do much suspension development, and publicly stated that they were only focusing on things that could translate to next year by Spa, it's not a stretch to imagine that they are at least prepared for next year. I have a feeling that McLaren has been focusing for 2017 probably since the beginning of this year during winter testing. If Honda has had a separate program dedicated to 2017 from the beginning of the year, and they have gone on record to state that communication is very good, and that they have McLaren personnel in Sakura working on chassis integration, then it makes sense to think that they're prepared. Whether that will be enough remains to be seen, but I doubt they'll be fighting with mid field teams. I'm getting anxious thinking about it, we don't even have a release date.
Mr Godlameroso, I really hope you are right. I add aerodynamic will 99% be as good as Redbul or Mercedes. I also think Honda will deliver engine on par with 2017 Ferrari Engine and only 20-30 HP down with respect of Mercedes, not more. The big issue is and will still be the car balance and dynamic behaviour due to masses distribution (not only the engine itself) and suspensions, which at my eye are under-developped with respect to same compenents in Redbul and Mercedes. If you look deepy you can understand those suspension systems are unique artwork and very precise. Those two cars are nealy always perfectly balanced in track and move smootly and fast in every corner. In addition tire menagement in redbul is very good while in Mercedes has reached perfection. In this doman McLaren is ages behind and they need more time to catch; probably in 2018 or 2019. This is mainly due to 2015 season during which Mclaren did not race at all, loosing one year of research and chassis development.
Consequently i'm confident that 2017 Mclaren Honda with Alonso can surely compete with Ferrari (they have similar chassis problems). In regards to Redbull and MErcedes hopefully they will occupy all the podiums. The worst option is Mercedes still domanating and Lewis WC; very boring
WCC/WDC will probably be out of reach but hopefully without having to concentrate on a new set of regulation and with no tokens to limit their development rate I hope for some podiums and maybe a win in the second half of the season.
Also I think you should call the engine "RA617H" instead of a generic "Honda V6 turbo" in the open post.
Pany wrote:Mr Godlameroso, I really hope you are right. I add aerodynamic will 99% be as good as Redbul or Mercedes. I also think Honda will deliver engine on par with 2017 Ferrari Engine and only 20-30 HP down with respect of Mercedes, not more.
On the contrary, they might surprise everyone by producing a PU that is on par with Mercedes 2017 PU. They now have 3 years of experience and Honda is a strong Japanese organization. This year, they have shown enormous development that made McLaren fight with Williams in the last part of the season. I have very little doubt that their PU is going to be top notch for 2017.
Pany wrote:Consequently i'm confident that 2017 Mclaren Honda with Alonso can surely compete with Ferrari (they have similar chassis problems).
No they don't have to. I strongly believe Ferrari has missed their train for 2017 and neither are they a strong Aero organization. It has been their Achilles heel. So, McLaren would be better than them. McLaren is either going to be competing at the front, or will be safely sitting as the third best team, without much headache from Ferrari behind them.
shotzski wrote:Just a side question: Is their any concrete news about Mclaren-BP/Castrol deal yet? Exxon announced their partnerhip with Red Bull, now what Mclaren?
Maybe they are still finalizing some details of the deal, or maybe Mclaren will still use Mobil 1 next year, just without the stickers on the car ... however Mclaren will not be left without a oil & fuel supplier that is for sure.
shotzski wrote:Just a side question: Is their any concrete news about Mclaren-BP/Castrol deal yet? Exxon announced their partnerhip with Red Bull, now what Mclaren?
Maybe they are still finalizing some details of the deal, or maybe Mclaren will still use Mobil 1 next year, just without the stickers on the car ... however Mclaren will not be left without a oil & fuel supplier that is for sure.
Why is Honda not deciding which fuel supplier to use ??
They will know best what to use with their PU ?? !! ?? (If their in no large sponsorship $$$$)
Last edited by mclaren111 on 06 Dec 2016, 12:27, edited 1 time in total.
Fernando Alonso 
Stoffel VanDoorne
