F1 Testing 2015: Week 1 Jerez
- Thread starter Shimmy
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Didn't the Sauber set it's fastest time on softs whereas the Ferrari and Mercedes were on mediums?
Caporegime
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Possibly, but I'm really just talking about Sauber compared to Sauber, this time last year(and for much of the season) it was several seconds off the pace of the Ferrari's let alone the Mercs. Even if it gained a second from tires it looks like it has moved on significantly in pace.
Yeah I was gonna say all the photos of McLaren people show sad faces...
I do have to wonder about the wisdom of only going with a single team for Honda for this season. Even if the engine proves reliable there are DOZENS of other issues the car or team could have which will severely curtail the running and therefore the data they desperately need to be competitive. As said, RBR had huge trouble at last seasons tests yet still won races. Basically the other Renault powered teams allowed Renault to get the mileage to get their engine working.
Caporegime
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Money, Marussia or Caterham given 10mil and a promise of free engines would have bitten Honda's arm off at the chance. They aren't remotely competitive with Mclaren nor would they ever be. Even now they should be talking with administrators and offering a basically 20mil bonus to anyone that picks up those teams. Great for the sport, encourage a team back in, get honda up to speed quicker, make them competitive maybe by 2016 instead of later, maybe much later. For 20-30mil to Honda, the amount they'd gain from it, if the engine got quicker sooner, it could easily be the difference between a few places in the constructors this year and next year. For an engine they've likely spent 100mil+ on, 20-30mil to help develop it significantly quicker is frankly a bargain.
Lotus may have been up for it aswell. Renault were laughably worse AND more expensive than Merc, Lotus jumped at the chance to pick up an engine from them, as their financial position is supposedly questionable but obviously more reliable than Caterham/Marussia, they could have offered them Honda engines for say 10mil instead of 20mil. Though Lotus have more potential to be actually competitive with the works teams, Mclaren would still have a significant advantage, bigger budget and Lotus have lost some important people.
Caporegime
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Oh, I happened to leave skygo on the f1 channel, ted's notebook just started now at 9.30pm so if you want to watch it go do that now 
Caporegime
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Can you really not understand the basic concept that if no one would actually chose to spend 20-30mil on a Honda engine over a Merc/Renault/Ferrari engine then the only option left for Honda to get a team to take one of their engines is to.... charge less, make it financially worthwhile for the team to chose them over one of the others? Also yes, they can charge whatever price they want, be that £5 or £50million, when encouraging someone to take your engine you would drop the price as low as required to make that deal happen. That is what they should have done. So they give away free engines one way or another, which could be as simple as charging 15mil but supplying them with a sponsor/driver combination, getting Magnussen a seat and paying them £10mil to use Magnussen thus effectively making the engine stupid cheap.
Although as said, it's fairly obvious by now Caterham/Marussia are extremely unlikely to come back at this point(though there are still rumours about Manor as of a couple days ago). Thus two teams that with the price of engines to wipe away from the budget, may be financially viable again at least for another year.
Honda have very little to lose, Mclaren/Honda are spending 100mil + to develop this engine, 20-30mil to get more laps, more testing and more data so the engine is competitive sooner is good value for money. There were two teams in extreme financial difficultly last year who would have taken a Honda engine in a heatbeat next year and a couple other teams who are borderline financially who would have taken a reduced cost and gone with a Honda engine, there were most certainly customers who a deal could have been done to get Honda engines in more cars.
Here you go, these are the best of the others of the Sauber:
Marcus Ericsson by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
Marcus Ericsson by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
Marcus Ericsson by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
Marcus Ericsson by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
Marcus Ericsson by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
Marcus Ericsson by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
Caporegime
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Something as simple as being arrogant or making a mistake is impossible isn't it, because no one in sport or big business makes a mistake.
On the off chance you make a cracking engine that works from day one, no reason you wouldn't want it all to yourself, but Mclaren keep making grandiose promises and rarely achieving them so maybe they should have thought more clearly. Ron is a pretty clearly arrogant person, maybe he didn't think of it, maybe he doesn't want to share an engine with a lesser team, maybe in a year of redoing everything they just didn't have time to think about it.
It would also cost them money to do so, maybe the board wouldn't agree, maybe they are so corporate and dull that when Honda or Ron tell them the engine will be great they believed it. I didn't say it was simple anywhere, I said what I would have done in their situation. I suggested a poor test and the lack of other cars running as a serious serious problem a long time ago. I was assured over and over again that they've had plenty of time, that after their disastrous Abu Dhabi test and media day that it was all sorted by people on here and would be fine for testing. I suggested this as a distinct possibility but even if it wasn't a disaster that they would still lack significant laps compared to every other manufacturer which will still be true even if Mclaren manage 50 laps a day from here on in, they'll still be behind.
Mclaren have been make awful decisions for the past decade, I don't think they are perfect, I've been saying since the situation was known that they are screwing up badly, there could be any number of reasons they didn't secure a second car... they are IMHO, stupid, all of them, whatever they are. A second car at worst spreads the risk and significantly increases the probability of getting good testing data and almost assures twice the data over the course of the season and for a pretty low total cost.
Why did no one else try hard to get Hamilton, why did other top drivers not try and get that other seat at Merc. I also highlighted at the time precisely(and now clearly quite accurately) why Merc had a fantastic chance to be one of the best teams going into 2014. Hamilton saw the chance, Alonso didn't try to get into that seat, neither did Vettel, they should have.