2017 Mclaren F1 Team - Honda

[mwillems]

Mclaren are a business. It would be irresponsible for them not to review all opportunities. Including moving to another engine manufacturer. I would be very surprised if they have not spoken to another manufacturer already, keeping their options open should they need to. So that part of the article is just flipping obvious.

But even if this was pursued, no new manufacturer would have an engine ready for next year. This would require Mclaren to source their PU from the other three manufacturers for a temporary period. Who would supply to them? Renault already supply Red Bull and they won't want two other teams with huge resources sharing their engine, IMO. Ferrari almost wouldn't want to support their historical rivals with a current spec PU. Leaving Mercedes as the more likely option I think. Would they supply Mclaren still? Who knows.

With the money Honda bring to the team, effectively supporting them through their sponsorship and prize money drought, would they move? The F1 brand will recover with wins. But I guess the question is how the F1 brand is affecting the other Mclaren group companies, I'm not sure it will have a big impact but who knows.

Alonso is in dissaray? Well yes, of course he will be. He stated many times over the past 2 years he'd review the 2017 performance and make a decision, generally done in a passionate and frustrated way. Nothing new here.

The only information he brings is that the engine is down on power from last year. With no quotes or references. Perhaps this is the case. Perhaps Mclaren are leaking information to pile pressure on Honda and protect their brand. If they are I fully believe that they are within their rights to do so.
But no one has officially said quite what the issue is. And I'd be very surprised if these vibrations are not severely hindering the efficiency or capability of the engine in more than just reliability, throughout the power range. Causing misfires, messing with timings.... it's entirely possible that by resolving these issues, they will unlock the engine performance and allow for more reliable and aggressive engine mappings, smoother application of power etc.... or not.

It's impossible to know, these types of article provide very little in terms of meaningful information.

[Goran2812]

Even if they do solve the issues in the coming weeks, they are on the back foot on just about everything regarding car setup and understanding how things work and setup changes affect it. It's gonna be a hard and loooong year for them...

[radosav]

Alonso's words -
Is this the engine spec you’ll have for Australia? And is this engine worse than last years’?
This is not the Australia-spec engine but it’s an evolution from what we had last week. For Australia we’ll have a different evolution, so from that point of view there’s still hope to gain some power and reliability with the final version. But last week’s spec didn’t deliver the results expected and this week’s spec is also going bellow expectations. For Australia we’ll have to hope for more, we have to be hopeful because the last two specs we worked with didn’t match our expectations.

[HPD]

Lobato is a friend of Fernando. Usually they use the same plane to travel to the races.
Sometimes...

[BrunoH]

well finally we got some inside information from Mclaren Honda... lets break the ice here a bit.. enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBPN1zYm-K8

Exclusive interview with a McLaren Honda executive [F1 2017]
heheheheh

[diffuser]

If the engine is really 50hp down in comparison to last year would it be realistic that they use the 2016 spec? Can they use the 2016 spec?

The 2017 PU isnt running how it should and is only 30hp down. They need to work ot the issues. They'll figure it out.

I'm expecting 2015 type results for Australia.

They need another 2 weeks of testing.

[proteus]

well finally we got some inside information from Mclaren Honda... lets break the ice here a bit.. enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBPN1zYm-K8

Exclusive interview with a McLaren Honda executive [F1 2017]
heheheheh

Honestly i must say this is kind of videos are mentally numming, and far from being funny. I must say i felt my intelect getting nummed and i only opened the video for a second and saw which one it is.

[mwillems]

If the engine is really 50hp down in comparison to last year would it be realistic that they use the 2016 spec? Can they use the 2016 spec?

The 2017 PU isnt running how it should and is only 30hp down. They need to work ot the issues. They'll figure it out.

I'm expecting 2015 type results for Australia.

They need another 2 weeks of testing.

Do you have a reference for the 30hp figure?

[RS200E]

well finally we got some inside information from Mclaren Honda... lets break the ice here a bit.. enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBPN1zYm-K8

Exclusive interview with a McLaren Honda executive [F1 2017]
heheheheh

Honestly i must say this is kind of videos are mentally numming, and far from being funny. I must say i felt my intelect getting nummed and i only opened the video for a second and saw which one it is.

If you have seen a lot of these type of subtitled videos I can understand that you could get fed up with them. Personally that is only the 2nd one I have seen! So I thought it was hilarious so thanks to BrunoH for the laugh.

And all the while my intellect remained intact.

[fenix4life]

If the engine is really 50hp down in comparison to last year would it be realistic that they use the 2016 spec? Can they use the 2016 spec?

The 2017 PU isnt running how it should and is only 30hp down. They need to work ot the issues. They'll figure it out.

Yeah sure, they will figure it out but if changes are required they will quickly use up their available engines.
Why not use the first races a 2016 engine and bring in the 2017 once sorted out.
This way they don't waste their limited amount of engines after 4 races.

[Goran2812]

How would they use the 2016 engine in their 2017 chassis?
New engine is smaller, has different design, probably has different couplings to chassis and gearbox...
They need to use the new one, test the hell out of it in first races, change 10 engines if needed, but make it work.
No point in going back to 2016 engine because they obviously have problems with testing on dyno/factory and doing the same in car/track. They would only find more problems if they run it let's say 3rd, 4th race...

[ollandos]

there is no problem .....honda already have data of how can finish the race on oz with scrap engine from 2015 .....maybe little rain some accidents 1 stop strategy can help more for points finish ...who know

[Mr Sparkle]

Even if they could just swap the 2017 unit with the 2016 one, I don't think it would really be worth it. The Honda 2016 was still the most unreliable engine last year and would now be around 100bhp+ down on the rest on the field.

[amho]

If they use 2017 engine they will detune it and still worried about reliability so it's better for Mclaren to use 2016 spec engine for first few races in this case they can develop their car without worries about reliability and this also can slightly remove stress from Honda engineers and give them some concentration.for sure they can add some power to 2016 spec with some patches because last year the engine was detuned due to some reliabity issues and token limitation.
I remember few years ago some teams coming to new season with old car and engine and they had new one after few races.

[proteus]

If they use 2017 engine they will detune it and still worried about reliability so it's better for Mclaren to use 2016 spec engine for first few races in this case they can develop their car without worries about reliability and this also can slightly remove stress from Honda engineers and give them some concentration.for sure they can add some power to 2016 spec with some patches because last year the engine was detuned due to some reliabity issues and token limitation.
I remember few years ago some teams coming to new season with old car and engine and they had new one after few races.

That was in a time when it was still possible to do so. There were no rule overhauls over the night in that time, and also the gaps between teams were different back in that day. But if someone used the allready underpowered spec of the engine, which was allready underpowered in the season it firstly competed it meant locking the rear row, or not even been able to qualify. They need to push the 2017 engine as fast as they can, they need it in the car in free practices, even if they burn 1, or 2, or 3...They need to do that if they want to compete this season on a certain level. As it has been proven in this 3 years, aparently dyno testing is not the benchmark for them making a powerfull and reliable engine. Its just better that they collect as much data as they can right on the field and sacriface 1, 2, 3 or more races - as much as it takes. With 2016 engine they would not score any points in that time anyway. If it takes half of the season to troubleshoot problems and fix them one by one and than start to reach the Q3 and steady points scoring positions it will mean a massive succes and breaktrough has been achieved.

Afterall its better they push the engine to its braking point and atleast be somewhere in the middle of the field for those 5 - 15 laps, than being like Manor was in 2015, dead last and only for the statistics.