The maximum speed has increased to 333.3 km / h, fourth fastest. On the contrary, McLaren who was a partner until last year was 324.3 km / h, 316.7 km / h, and it was stagnant, "The slowness of the car last year was the influence of car body drag (air resistance)" The way of view has expanded. However, Tanabe Technical Director will not break down his cautious stance, "I can not say anything at this stage because it depends on what we are setting for cars."Sayeman wrote: ↑07 Apr 2018, 19:02Situation has reversed for Honda this year. Last year everyone assumed Mclaren had one of the best chassis on the grid, so even a little bit of improvement was being attributed to the chassis. Now everyone know TR is a midfield team with a good but not great chassis. So results like these will give Honda more credibility.
I also think the extra money saved from paying Mclaren and Alonso is speeding up the development. Hopefully the engine holds up tomorrow.
Also the Mclaren chassis being draggy claims from last year might hold some truth as they are the slowest between the renaults on the straight, but that can easily be due to integration issue.
Problem was on both sides, Mclaren not compromising and Honda not making enough progress. See how TR has given Honda leeaway by giving the engine more room to breath, as the reliability goes up, they can make the rear tight again. If it were Mclaren I am sure they would have told Honda to improve the Pu rather than making the car less aero efficient.Revs84 wrote: ↑07 Apr 2018, 23:18Apologies for the poor Google translation, something making sentences to read the opposite way, but the gist is that Honda was made to look much worse than it really was by McLaren and the media in general. The Honda engine was indeed the least powerful one on the track, however, the gap was much less than it was made to seem. Tanabe claims that the lack of speed on the straights was indeed, as our friend Techman has pointed out a 'few times', down to a draggy chassis.
I was just quoting Tanabe in reply to your comment about McLaren running high drag in 2017.Sayeman wrote: ↑07 Apr 2018, 23:24Problem was on both sides, Mclaren not compromising and Honda not making enough progress. See how TR has given Honda leeaway by giving the engine more room to breath, as the reliability goes up, they can make the rear tight again. If it were Mclaren I am sure they would have told Honda to improve the Pu rather than making the car less aero efficient.Revs84 wrote: ↑07 Apr 2018, 23:18Apologies for the poor Google translation, something making sentences to read the opposite way, but the gist is that Honda was made to look much worse than it really was by McLaren and the media in general. The Honda engine was indeed the least powerful one on the track, however, the gap was much less than it was made to seem. Tanabe claims that the lack of speed on the straights was indeed, as our friend Techman has pointed out a 'few times', down to a draggy chassis.
Mclaren had some stability issues coming out of corners today, they had some similar issues in the last 3 years but the PU's lack of drivability was blamed mostly. Can't use the same reasoning anymore with Renault.
Some were even blaming Honda for the poor pitstops (!) because of the low morale. Divorce was the right way to go. Now Redbull is set to gain from their suffering. But with all those Aston martin logos around the car, will Honda let RBR rebrand their engines?
Hmm who do you go with, the biggest engine maker in the world who is starting to show everyone they have an engine that belongs on the grid, or Aston Martin. It's a pickle, because I don't think Aston Martin would ever use a Honda engine in any of it's cars(Despite the NSX engine being lighter than Mercedes twin turbo V8). There are certainly opportunities in a tie up, with a better engine Red Bull's probability of success would increase, it's almost a no brainer.Revs84 wrote: ↑07 Apr 2018, 23:44I was just quoting Tanabe in reply to your comment about McLaren running high drag in 2017.Sayeman wrote: ↑07 Apr 2018, 23:24Problem was on both sides, Mclaren not compromising and Honda not making enough progress. See how TR has given Honda leeaway by giving the engine more room to breath, as the reliability goes up, they can make the rear tight again. If it were Mclaren I am sure they would have told Honda to improve the Pu rather than making the car less aero efficient.Revs84 wrote: ↑07 Apr 2018, 23:18Apologies for the poor Google translation, something making sentences to read the opposite way, but the gist is that Honda was made to look much worse than it really was by McLaren and the media in general. The Honda engine was indeed the least powerful one on the track, however, the gap was much less than it was made to seem. Tanabe claims that the lack of speed on the straights was indeed, as our friend Techman has pointed out a 'few times', down to a draggy chassis.
Mclaren had some stability issues coming out of corners today, they had some similar issues in the last 3 years but the PU's lack of drivability was blamed mostly. Can't use the same reasoning anymore with Renault.
Some were even blaming Honda for the poor pitstops (!) because of the low morale. Divorce was the right way to go. Now Redbull is set to gain from their suffering. But with all those Aston martin logos around the car, will Honda let RBR rebrand their engines?
The ones blaming Honda for the poor pitstops were again McLaren; I believe it was Boullier who mentioned this during Barcelona testing, stating that they could not practice pit stops due to the issues they were facing.
In regards to RBR re-branding Honda engines, I can tell you right away that it will not happen. Neither as a customer team and even less as a works team.
Problem is it isn't just for RB to decide. If you are Renault and you see Honda improving, are you going to want to keep supplying a team with a sister team being the works partner of a direct competitor? Even with how the PUs are watched by the Renault technicians there will be opportunity for knowledge transfer to Honda. Maybe Renault won't care, but if it were me, I'd be paranoid.Marti_EF3 wrote: ↑07 Apr 2018, 23:56In my opinion it would be better a 2019 STR full designed and integrated with Honda engine, rather than split the efforts to STR and RBR... Seeing how the relationship was with an historic team with top drivers... I'm not much friendly of a partnerhsip with other big team that soon...