NL_Fer wrote: ↑16 Sep 2017, 10:04
So Mc-Honda ends this year. I still question how it became so bad. It was clear Honda made wrong choice with the Turbo-in-V in 2015, and they already at the end of that season the understood they could never unlock the full potential of MGH-H harvesting with that design. And the 2016 was a compromise.
So already in 2015 McLaren knew Honda would have a correct design in 2017 and they would need the year to redevelop. You cannot blame Honda for not making it work from scratch (the 2017 design). And to extrapolate further, McLaren had experience with the '14 Merc engine, they should have gotten insight in the potential of ERS. Couldn't they have seen the disaster with the Turbo-in-V coming? I mean, it was in their interest also to get a proper engine?
The timeline is slightly off, unfortunately the turbo in the v was the wrong choice, but it was also an engine with no where near enough testing as it was only a 1.5 year development cycle when Mercedes spent over double that and the other two about double the time so a more complex design and smaller being done in half the time, very very stupid idea. Both made it a pretty much impossible task but one in which Honda should have said a flat no to, Honda agreed so they are also responsible with the person who made that decision for Honda himself almost completely at fault.
But then Honda got more stupid, when 2015 sucked they doubled down and insisted the compressor in the V could work, so a project for a new concept car for 2017 didn't start early in 2015 alongside trying to fix that engine as it absolutely had to. It seems when the first guy was replaced the new guy in ~April last year started off following the previous guys upgrade plan then it seems from quotes and statements that the new concept was only started around June or so last year. So we had a massively rushed engine from Honda in 2015, then they doubled down on their bad design and now we have really an even more rushed engine to start off 2017 hence it was such a regression in reliability. Rushing really complex engineering is just flat out stupid and Honda keep making exceptionally bad decisions from the start.
I think basically the doubling down on the compressor in the V was a classic pride situation, they wanted to prove their engineering so even though it was a bad decision they wanted to prove that engine could work even if it was really slow and to a degree they did do that in 2016. It wasn't even that reliable and certainly not fast but was hugely improved compared to 2017. but proving that they could make that engine work better rather than start work on a better engine was a monumentally costly mistake.