Soldato
- Joined
- 7 Mar 2005
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Two F1 journos (James Allen and Joe Saward) have articles on their blogs that McLaren are interested in Honda engines from 2014 onwards, thus potentially resurrecting the glory days of Senna, Prost and Honda powered McLarens.
Mercedes do have a contract with McLaren until 2015 but apparently McLaren are working towards buying the last 16% of the company that Mercedes own. Then McLaren could conceivably bring forward the end of their contract with Mercedes by a couple of years so that they can use Honda engines from 2014 when the new engine rules take effect.
As James Allen says, with Williams powered by Renault again from 2012 onwards, retro partnerships are all the rage now. We just need McLaren and Honda to work together again and use the classic red and white livery. Of course they won't be using Marlboro on the cars.
Initially I thought this Honda and McLaren deal could be quite hard to pull off but reading through both the articles it does seem possible. If Mercedes and McLaren are going to split, surely Mercedes would prefer McLaren not to have two years worth of knowledge of their 2014 engine so Mercedes could be quite happy to end their deal with McLaren after 2013 so that only the works Mercedes team gets the 2014 Mercedes engine. And whilst Honda has many issues in Japan, the high exchange rates mean that any European based project Honda work on would be 40% cheaper than it was in 2008. They ran an entire team then so perhaps they could be tempted to resurrect a legendary partnership and power McLaren as their engine partner.
So who else wants this to happen? I'm not old enough to know/remember the halcyon days of McLaren, Honda, Marlboro, Senna and Prost but I'd love to see a classic team and engine pairing back together again. McLaren will lose out if they don't find themselves an engine partner as Renault now consider Red Bull their main team, Ferrari have their own engines and Mercedes the same. If McLaren want to stay competitive it looks as if they need to tempt Honda back into F1. When I first heard of the 2015 split between McLaren and Mercedes I assumed that McLaren would do a Ferrari and make their own engines, using their expertise gained from their road cars project. Perhaps they've decided that they need an experienced engine partner and can't do a Ferrari just yet.
James Allen says that the McLaren Honda partnership won 44 races between 1988 and 1992. Having a quick check on Wikipedia shows that of the five seasons between 1988 and 1992 inclusive there were 16 races in each season so for McLaren to win 44 of those 80 races is quite a stunning achievement, 55% of the races between '88 and '92 were won by McLaren!
James Allen's blog
Joe Saward's blog
The Auto Motor und Sport article (in German) that both Allen and Saward seem to be getting their knowledge of this potential deal from.
The English translation of the Auto Motor und Sport article.
Mercedes do have a contract with McLaren until 2015 but apparently McLaren are working towards buying the last 16% of the company that Mercedes own. Then McLaren could conceivably bring forward the end of their contract with Mercedes by a couple of years so that they can use Honda engines from 2014 when the new engine rules take effect.
As James Allen says, with Williams powered by Renault again from 2012 onwards, retro partnerships are all the rage now. We just need McLaren and Honda to work together again and use the classic red and white livery. Of course they won't be using Marlboro on the cars.
Initially I thought this Honda and McLaren deal could be quite hard to pull off but reading through both the articles it does seem possible. If Mercedes and McLaren are going to split, surely Mercedes would prefer McLaren not to have two years worth of knowledge of their 2014 engine so Mercedes could be quite happy to end their deal with McLaren after 2013 so that only the works Mercedes team gets the 2014 Mercedes engine. And whilst Honda has many issues in Japan, the high exchange rates mean that any European based project Honda work on would be 40% cheaper than it was in 2008. They ran an entire team then so perhaps they could be tempted to resurrect a legendary partnership and power McLaren as their engine partner.
So who else wants this to happen? I'm not old enough to know/remember the halcyon days of McLaren, Honda, Marlboro, Senna and Prost but I'd love to see a classic team and engine pairing back together again. McLaren will lose out if they don't find themselves an engine partner as Renault now consider Red Bull their main team, Ferrari have their own engines and Mercedes the same. If McLaren want to stay competitive it looks as if they need to tempt Honda back into F1. When I first heard of the 2015 split between McLaren and Mercedes I assumed that McLaren would do a Ferrari and make their own engines, using their expertise gained from their road cars project. Perhaps they've decided that they need an experienced engine partner and can't do a Ferrari just yet.
James Allen says that the McLaren Honda partnership won 44 races between 1988 and 1992. Having a quick check on Wikipedia shows that of the five seasons between 1988 and 1992 inclusive there were 16 races in each season so for McLaren to win 44 of those 80 races is quite a stunning achievement, 55% of the races between '88 and '92 were won by McLaren!
James Allen's blog
Joe Saward's blog
The Auto Motor und Sport article (in German) that both Allen and Saward seem to be getting their knowledge of this potential deal from.
The English translation of the Auto Motor und Sport article.