Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Singabule]

Honda must seal STR deal if want to fully compete with other manufacturer, 1 team is not enough for gathering data. Leave MCL to decide, focus on behind the screen work to improve PU and try to grab RB Junior deal. If the 4 spec work, they got RB senior joining them, and RB wish of independent manufacturer Come true

[superdowg316]

Like the article said, I cannot see Renault wanting to sell engines to more than one formidable team. They already have their hands full trying to compete at Red Bull's level.

Let's assume for a moment that the power numbers in the article are accurate and let's also assume "spec. 4" has the potential to deliver +50kW, as has been suggested. What would be the advantage to McLaren switching at that point? If they move up the grid either way, sponsorship deals become easier either way, and they'd still be a works team if they stay with Honda; it suddenly seems silly to change.
__________

Any word what spec. they're running in testing? I know many of us are hoping they finally get spec. 4 out on track and turn its promise into reality.

Remember though that Renault supplied factory engines to Red Bull as well as to themselves from 2007-2010 with no issues.

[Thunder]

Look at it with another view.

Honda is done with Loud-mouth disrespectful McLaren.
(to the Japanese...disrespect is the number 1 no-no)

Honda gives them free PU and 100 million a year.Would McLaren be that bad mouth to a title sponsor?
And 30 million a year to Alonso.

Honda Red Bull is looking better every day.World Champs in 2019?

Yes, Red Bull was really patting Renaults back and kept it nice and quiet when they were in trouble.

[Wazari]

Just to clarify: I mentioned Honda's intial lack of budget and manpower, not facilities. McLaren's budget (I'm basing this on manpower) is also nowhere close to Mercedes or Ferrari. HRD has stepped its manpower and spending tremendously since the end of the 2015 season.

Also there is a difference between RBR-Renault relationship and McLaren Honda. RBR is clearly the customer to Renault. Renault is not contributing to RBR financially the way Honda is to McLaren. So to compare the two relationships IMO is like comparing apples to oranges. Sorry for being off topic.

Also I believe that this "Spec 4" will be slightly heavier than the current spec PU by about 4 Kilos. I also know the potential peak power from the "Spec 4" ICE is a substantial increase from the current ICE.

[diffuser]

Could you imagine of McLaren went with Renault.....We'd have to get Wazari a job at Renault!

[FW17]

Just to clarify: I mentioned Honda's intial lack of budget and manpower, not facilities. McLaren's budget (I'm basing this on manpower) is also nowhere close to Mercedes or Ferrari. HRD has stepped its manpower and spending tremendously since the end of the 2015 season.

Also there is a difference between RBR-Renault relationship and McLaren Honda. RBR is clearly the customer to Renault. Renault is not contributing to RBR financially the way Honda is to McLaren. So to compare the two relationships IMO is like comparing apples to oranges. Sorry for being off topic.

Also I believe that this "Spec 4" will be slightly heavier than the current spec PU by about 4 Kilos. I also know the potential peak power from the "Spec 4" ICE is a substantial increase from the current ICE.

Red Bull were getting $70 million + through the Infinity deal

Free oil and fuel from Total

[kasio]

Also I believe that this "Spec 4" will be slightly heavier than the current spec PU by about 4 Kilos. I also know the potential peak power from the "Spec 4" ICE is a substantial increase from the current ICE.

Wow! 4kg thats really much unless spec 3 was below 145kg. but i guess nobody has been there considering talks about merc overweight at the start of the season.

[mclaren111]

Also I believe that this "Spec 4" will be slightly heavier than the current spec PU by about 4 Kilos. I also know the potential peak power from the "Spec 4" ICE is a substantial increase from the current ICE.

Wow! 4kg thats really much unless spec 3 was below 145kg. but i guess nobody has been there considering talks about merc overweight at the start of the season.

I don't think it's that much as part of this is for 2018 as well where only 3 PU's are allowed.

[gary123]

Just to clarify: I mentioned Honda's intial lack of budget and manpower, not facilities. McLaren's budget (I'm basing this on manpower) is also nowhere close to Mercedes or Ferrari. HRD has stepped its manpower and spending tremendously since the end of the 2015 season.

Also there is a difference between RBR-Renault relationship and McLaren Honda. RBR is clearly the customer to Renault. Renault is not contributing to RBR financially the way Honda is to McLaren. So to compare the two relationships IMO is like comparing apples to oranges. Sorry for being off topic.

Also I believe that this "Spec 4" will be slightly heavier than the current spec PU by about 4 Kilos. I also know the potential peak power from the "Spec 4" ICE is a substantial increase from the current ICE.

Red Bull were getting $70 million + through the Infinity deal

Free oil and fuel from Total

And 30 milion from Total.

[max_speed]

Just to clarify: I mentioned Honda's intial lack of budget and manpower, not facilities. McLaren's budget (I'm basing this on manpower) is also nowhere close to Mercedes or Ferrari. HRD has stepped its manpower and spending tremendously since the end of the 2015 season.

Also there is a difference between RBR-Renault relationship and McLaren Honda. RBR is clearly the customer to Renault. Renault is not contributing to RBR financially the way Honda is to McLaren. So to compare the two relationships IMO is like comparing apples to oranges. Sorry for being off topic.

Also I believe that this "Spec 4" will be slightly heavier than the current spec PU by about 4 Kilos. I also know the potential peak power from the "Spec 4" ICE is a substantial increase from the current ICE.

@wazari you have revealed quite a lot . now please tell us the date when this "spec4" is being rolled out. are they testing this spec in current test.

[jurjogan]

i have been reading you for a while, I have never written though. I just would like to thank @wazari for his contributions.

Hope the personal problems you were going through are getting better. I am in the same situation and it's so frustating.

Thanks pal!

[GoranF1]

A new PU was tested yesterday and Vandoorne did a lap whit not empty fuel tank and was happy. Some say it could have been SPA spec.
Lets see if that makes Alonso happy and he desides Honda can stay.
Yes he runs this team.

[Andres125sx]

Look at it with another view.

Honda is done with Loud-mouth disrespectful McLaren.
(to the Japanese...disrespect is the number 1 no-no)

Honda gives them free PU and 100 million a year.Would McLaren be that bad mouth to a title sponsor?
And 30 million a year to Alonso.

Honda Red Bull is looking better every day.World Champs in 2019?

Do you really believe Red Bull would have been any less vocal if they were in McLarens shoes for the last 3 years?

This!

Taking into account Renault perfomance and Honda perfomance, I´d say Mclaren has been a lot more respectful to Honda than Red Bull was with Renault. Heck they even did renounce to using Renault name even when perfomance was not that far off (compared to Honda)

[max_speed]

A new PU was tested yesterday and Vandoorne did a lap whit not empty fuel tank and was happy. Some say it could have been SPA spec.
Lets see if that makes Alonso happy and he desides Honda can stay.
Yes he runs this team.

cautious optimism lets hope it has 50 horses more and lot to forget alonso is worth 30 horse more so we are going to be on par with mercs in spa hahaha.
Disclaimer: do not start to abuse me , pure fun intended here.

[FvtecA]

Hi all.

I have been lurking here for some time and decided to post. I really like speculating on numbers and I get to see a lot of numbers here. So I am going to speculate with you guys.

I predicted that the leading McLaren will be within 1.4 s from the leading Ferrari and the gap actually turned out to be within 1.3 s, so I think maybe these numbers won't be far off. Of course there's no proof of that so if you can believe that I did predict the previous number maybe the next ones will be good as well.

So, assumptions. Hahahaha, these are all assumptions. Now lets get to the numbers.

There's some sort of consensus that at Abu Dhabi 2016, Merc was at 960 HP and Honda was at 900 HP. The next assumption is that Honda was back at 900 at Barcelona. So what did "Spec 3" bring. Wazari mentioned 10-20 HP while AMUS stated that they are halfway into the 2016 deficit so 30 HP. Lets average it out and say 25 HP. Lets say the Merc is at 980 HP now. And qualifying mode is at 995 HP. This is because I think Andy Cowell said that they are not going to be at 1000 this year. So these are all the assumed numbers. I am going to say Ferrari is at a similar number as well.

Boullier mentioned at some point that they were losing 1.8 s at Baku and 0.9 s at Hungary due to engine. I am going to take this at face value and see where the numbers lead. Now since Baku is a more engine sensitive circuit, we'll say 10 HP is worth 0.2 s at Baku and Hungary at 0.15 s. Now, Baku was at 900 HP and Hungary at 925 HP so do these numbers match up.

Option 1:
(995 - 900)*0.20 = 0.190
(995 - 925)*0.15 = 0.105

Option 2:
(990 - 900)*0.20 = 0.180
(990 - 925)*0.15 = 0.098

Option 3:
(990 - 900)*0.20 = 0.180
(990 - 930)*0.15 = 0.090

Option 3:
(995 - 900)*0.20 = 0.190
(995 - 930)*0.15 = 0.098

So if these numbers suggest either Merc is at 990 and Honda at 930 or this is all a load of crap. Lets move on.

Now we want to solve the inverse problem. Once we see the qualifying numbers at Spa, and assuming that the next Honda upgrade is coming, we want to know how much HP will Honda be at. For my Hungary prediction I assumed that Hungary in principle is a similar track to Spain. I'll assume that Spa will be similar to Silverstone. So lead Merc to lead McLaren was at 2.8 s. Now Spa 2016 P1 was 1:46.744. Assuming there will be a 3.5 s improvement we'll say it will be 1:43.2 this year. So scaling that we get 3.3 s. So at current spec we are down 3.3 s. Now, how much does 10 HP give at Spa. Assuming 70 HP deficit at Silverstone, that's a whopping 0.4 s and scaling that takes us to 0.48 s.

Now we assume that by then this spec will be at 930 HP with all optimizations. Another thing I'll do is that I reduce deficit by 0.1 s every 15 HP simply for a halo effect since they can add more downforce with higher speed. So lets do the numbers again.

Baseline:
(995 - 930)*0.48 - 0.0 = 3.1

+15 HP
(995 - 945)*0.48 - 0.1 = 2.3

+30 HP
(995 - 960)*0.48 - 0.2 = 1.5

+45 HP (Too optimistic)
(995 - 975)*0.48 - 0.3 = 0.7

So, near Spa, we'll see more speculations from different sources about how much HP they'll bring. And once qualifying happens, if these numbers are reasonable we'll know roughly how much HP it is.