Mclaren-Honda MP4-30 *** 2015 Launch Thread

[sunama]

Ultimately that is the thing isn't it, 30, 50, 70 or 150million is still a LOT of money. Either they can spend more, or simply make more profit, I fail to think of a single situation in which you'd refuse to take money ...

Yep. Exactly.
If you get £70M. Take it. If more, then take that instead.
Basically, F1 cars are billboards - they are their to earn paid advertising.

Also, McLaren operate like a corporate business. When racing, us fans mostly hate the grey suit, decision by committee style of decision making. But when it comes to getting sponsors, this is the best way of attaining them. The grey way works a treat.

Back in the early 90s when Williams were going head to head with McLaren, both companies were run and financed (similar budgets) in a similar way. But as times progressed McLaren spent more time/effort furthering their business. They started making road cars and got into bed with Mercedes. I believe they have doubled the size of their factory in order to accommodate the road car manufacture. Williams on the other hand focussed purely on F1 racing and as a result, financially got left behind.

When it comes to making money, getting sponsors and marketing, to my mind, McLaren are by far the best in the F1 business. And this is what strikes me as odd - that McLaren cant get a title sponsor.

In any case, for me, I care little about their sponsors or livery. I want to see them make a fast car so Alonso can battle Hamilton (Merc), Vettel (Ferrari) and Ricciardo (RBR). It would be fantastic if all 4 teams could produce a competitive car, for 4 great drivers.

 

[this_is_gav]

Back in the early 90s when Williams were going head to head with McLaren, both companies were run and financed (similar budgets) in a similar way. But as times progressed McLaren spent more time/effort furthering their business. They started making road cars and got into bed with Mercedes. I believe they have doubled the size of their factory in order to accommodate the road car manufacture. Williams on the other hand focussed purely on F1 racing and as a result, financially got left behind.

Williams have always been one of the lower-funded top teams, if that makes sense. I doubt think they've ever had a budget on par with McLaren, even at the height of their success. It's why even their most successful drivers were told to jog on.

 

[Skeeter]

I don't get the impression that McLaren can't get sponsorship, it sounds more like they are turning people down because they don't think they are good enough.

 

[Ryan-3]

That sounds like something Ron would do to be fair. Sponsor that fits what he wants or is happy to pay an extortionate amount.

 

[Slam62]

Fred appears to be caught up in the HSBC tax evasion and is threatening law suits

 

[robbiemc]

I don't get the impression that McLaren can't get sponsorship, it sounds more like they are turning people down because they don't think they are good enough.

Yep, exactly this.

Sponsorship comes down to an agreement:
£x for x% of the car, along with other 'promotional' activities (such as the awful TV ads with Jenson etc).

McLaren clearly aren't desperate for the money, so they are sticking to their guns when it comes down to it.

Remember that nothing is ever clear cut or as simple as it appears. Potential sponsors may not want to be associated with other McLaren sponsors for example, or may want restrictions that Ron can't/won't agree to.

 

[Skeeter]

Was it Boulier who said something like "they are looking for sponsors that fit the status of the team".

But regardless, painting the car the colours of your old sponsors because you don't consider any of your current sponsors to have paid you enough is just bizzare.

 

[drunkenmaster]

But in talk about being discerning about sponsors... they took on CNN, a news organisation that afaik has dropped to the just keeping their head above Fox level.

The marketing guff coming out of Ron about the CNN deal, they are both immensely influential global companies, blah blah blah, CNN pioneering the latest technologies and techniques in a relentless, unforgiving, fast paced environment............ really?

Basically if they'll take on CNN I suspect they don't really give a crap who they get, they are just trying to push the price up of whoever they finally get. Though I think Mclarens lack of competitiveness is also an issue. Someone wants a 3 year deal maybe now but they don't want to pay the sponsorship that say a team winning titles could charge and Mclaren don't want to get stuck with a smaller deal and then find themselves competitive next year but locked into a cheap deal. After a couple terrible years they are likely hoping that with a new engine by the end of the year they might look half decent and be able to get a sponsorship deal reflecting a competitive team rather than back end of the pack team.

 

[Flibster]

CNN used to be famous for investigative journalism. Then they sacked all their investigative journalists.

IIRC when CNN sponsored Caterham, there was no money involved, it was a joint promotional agreement, and given CNN's current status, I'd be surprised if there was much cash involved this time either.

 

[Stringy]

I can understand being picky on the sponsorship; McLaren want to be viewed in the same league as Ferrari/Porsche/Lamborghini in the car manufacturing side of things, they're not exactly going to allow themselves to be sponsored by any old company and change their livery to match are they (could you imagine a McDonalds McLaren for example? hahaha) If someone 'suitable' wanted to sponsor them them they'll accept, if not they'd probably rather go without.

 

[Skeeter]

I can understand being picky on the sponsorship; McLaren want to be viewed in the same league as Ferrari/Porsche/Lamborghini in the car manufacturing side of things, they're not exactly going to allow themselves to be sponsored by any old company and change their livery to match are they (could you imagine a McDonalds McLaren for example? hahaha) If someone 'suitable' wanted to sponsor them them they'll accept, if not they'd probably rather go without.

But on the flip side they are perfectly happy to run their car in a livery strongly associated with an engine supplier and a title sponsor that they are no longer connected to?

Surely running a livery nobody understands is as bad as running a tacky livery? Especially when the rest of the team has been rebranded, creating a random image of a split team personality. Also, I wonder how many casual fans would know they are now running Honda engines?

Just paint the dam car white and green and get on with it Ron!

 

[Ryan-3]

The whole car in Championship white, sponsors in black.

 

[robbiemc]

But on the flip side they are perfectly happy to run their car in a livery strongly associated with an engine supplier and a title sponsor that they are no longer connected to?

Maybe its the dreaded McLaren board not agreeing? No one agrees, so they keep with something familiar that sorta matches the existing McLaren branding (so they don't need to re-paint everything etc).

'Better the devil you know' or something.

 

[cuke2u]

Whats the problem with the livery, its better than being all black and only going to be on the car for a short time. Can't see what the fuss is all about really....

 

[Skeeter]

Maybe its the dreaded McLaren board not agreeing? No one agrees, so they keep with something familiar that sorta matches the existing McLaren branding (so they don't need to re-paint everything etc).

'Better the devil you know' or something.

But they have rebranded everything else! All the team kit is white and dark green, they have redone all the wall sections inside the garage and the bits they put out the back in white with green highlights and silver text.

The chassis is also new, so it's not like they have just not bothered to paint the old car. Someone made the decision to paint all that stufff those colours, including the car. Either that persons a bit of an idiot, or the more likely option is all the decisions weren't made by the same person.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Haven't noticed it being mentioned on here, nor by Mclaren. Seems that rather after the fact Mclaren told everyone they completely their two days of media testing. They didn't mention how many laps they got done which, I don't know if that's a bad sign. IE if they maxed out 100km each day after their problems I'm fairly sure they'd be bragging about it.

That puts them and various incarnations of the engine at 10 test days now. 2 media last year, 2 this year, end of season test 2 days last year, 4 day first test this year.

They really need to be getting some good laps in for this test, they are miles behind and have had so many advantages compared to the other teams. Extra time, ability to see what the other teams were doing and take their pick of the best ideas and last year the engines had maybe one media test day before the real testing it was close before the first test afaik. Mclaren were running this engine(obviously a prototype but same goes for all teams really) as early as November and had two full testing events extra compared to where the other teams were at last year at the start.

 

[The_Abyss]

Mercedes have also completed a filming day, at Silverstone ahead of the Jerez test.

 

[this_is_gav]

They really need to be getting some good laps in for this test, they are miles behind and have had so many advantages compared to the other teams. Extra time, ability to see what the other teams were doing and take their pick of the best ideas and last year the engines had maybe one media test day before the real testing it was close before the first test afaik. Mclaren were running this engine(obviously a prototype but same goes for all teams really) as early as November and had two full testing events extra compared to where the other teams were at last year at the start.

It's still a prototype apparently. Judging by what they said in November (I think it was) the plan was to use the next revision for this test and the race version in the final test or at Melbourne. That's probably why the car has looked a handful to drive in the wet in particular, as there's little point over complicating things with irrelevant engine maps?

This is a pure test season anyway. Everything points towards a huge effort in 2016. You only have to look at the completely new car philosophy to see they've thrown everything out of the window and started afresh. They expect problems - perhaps they even want problems, so they can learn from them and dial them out for 2016.

They won't write off this season, obviously, but the plan to learn this year, be close at the end of 2015 and mount a challenge for titles in 2016. There's no point having any expectations in McLaren this year. Think the Ferrari 640.

 

[Alibaba99]

Mclaren were running this engine(obviously a prototype but same goes for all teams really) as early as November and had two full testing events extra compared to where the other teams were at last year at the start.

The engine that McLaren were running at the end of last year was very different to the one that was used in the 1st test this year. The packaging and cooling requirements have changed substantially.

 

[drunkenmaster]

The engine itself is likely less changed than you believe, the fundamental cooling, air intake for engine, general direction of air, it's all fairly similar. The biggest changes come in tubing/piping and where you jam every little radiator for everything, how you package it all, that really wouldn't have changed the fundamental design/shape/anything about the main engine itself.

Effectively they would have put their general engine design which by then was a split turbo, put it in the engine shaped space in the chassis(don't forget that Mclaren were running a split turbo design already) and pretty much duck taped down radiators/pipes in every space they had. They weren't looking for aero efficiency or top cooling at that point. They would have been hoping to creep around at 50% power if that, without hitting anywhere near top temps and ultra tight packaging wasn't required at that stage.

It will have been a prototype engine as I said but not that far removed from the current engine, in terms of working on the electronics, timings, finding some problems it still gave them a huge 2 month lead on what anyone else had at the same stage last year.

Gav, yup, I've said all along I expect 2015 to be a test season and I think they'll run into issues all year. I've likened it to Merc many times, it took them 2-3 years of significant rebuilding of the team to get where they were at the start of last season. I think what will ultimately hurt them for 2016 as well is even with 2015 as a test year, one team running won't find nearly as many problems as two let alone four teams would.

Merc have stated that having more teams has undoubtedly helped them, saying that other teams have run into problems that let them find and fix them before Merc as a team ran into the same problem themselves.

I honestly think they'll find it more of a struggle this year than most believe and I think the lack of extra teams running will prevent them being competitive in 2016. They need time on track and have paired a new engine with less testing than any other team will have with an ultra aggressive new car they have only just built... it's asking for trouble. Honestly a more conservative car that allowed them more consistent engine running then pairing a better tested engine to a ultra aggressive car next year might have been the way to go IMHO.

I mean RBR had a LOT of experience with the style of chassis/aero design/packaging as they started off with last year but it gimped their running compared to less aggressive cars BUT they had those other cars getting miles on the engine, something Mclaren won't have as a back up.

I really wouldn't be surprised if it was 2017 before Mclaren looked like they could be competitive again.