McLaren Honda

It is the only sensible course of action now. Very unlikely they could change engines this season, but work on the 2018 car will soon start and they will need to prepare for that. Honda had a go, but ultimately fell well short. People say that they're 3 years behind, but the current engine is not up to par with the other engines in the first year they were introduced.

Bin Honda and there's really very little remaining of the Denis era.
 
If they make a deal to go with Merc next year though then their support from Honda is going to suffer this year. Can't see them bringing any upgrades knowing that their contract is going to be over

I wonder if they could get the Merc engine in this year, bit like Brawn did with their last minute engine change. If nothing else it will show us if the chassis really is as good as they claim it to be
 
howler said:
If they make a deal to go with Merc next year though then their support from Honda is going to suffer this year. Can't see them bringing any upgrades knowing that their contract is going to be over

I wonder if they could get the Merc engine in this year, bit like Brawn did with their last minute engine change. If nothing else it will show us if the chassis really is as good as they claim it to be
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Unlikely, would have thought it would need a chop job to fit as although I understand Honda went for a mercedes like engine design there is no guarantee the Merc engine would fit without some serious modification to bodywork/aero package.
 
howler said:
If they make a deal to go with Merc next year though then their support from Honda is going to suffer this year. Can't see them bringing any upgrades knowing that their contract is going to be over

I wonder if they could get the Merc engine in this year, bit like Brawn did with their last minute engine change. If nothing else it will show us if the chassis really is as good as they claim it to be
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I can't see that Merc can just magic up more engines and staff even if Maclaren wanted to switch right now. Mercedes would need time to organise resources, and Maclaren would have to change their car dramatically to make a new engine fit.
 
Very interesting development in the whole McLaren saga. To be honest I am not surprised at all about the links to Mercedes. As much as I want to see McLaren competitive, I think it's negative that Honda leave F1. I thought Liberty Media & the FIA long term goal was to attract as many manufacturers as they could into F1.
 
They won't cut ties with Honda so soon unless one of the three approached McLaren offering a supply of power units. The headline of McLaren asking Merc about their supply is the same process that Merc did asking all the other drivers including Alonso what their contracts were like, you know the supply is not available but you have to be seen making these contacts. Merc already have the supply of engines due to Manor dropping out but it won't be that simple shoe-horning a different engine to the car this late in development when testing is done so any changes won't be until next season at the earliest.
 
Also, McLaren could be doing this to give Honda a kick up the backside.

Threatening to leave in order to give your existing supplier some heat is standard practice for a lot of things, but your threats need to be genuine or it'll be obvious trolling. The risk they run is telling Honda that they'll switch to Merc if things don't improve when Merc have no realistic opportunity to fulfil their end of the deal. Essentially, if Merc respond with "lolwut?", Honda will be slightly annoyed that McLaren are playing games.
 
Honda have missed the 2017 F1 boat. There is no way they will be able to catch the rest of the pack without testing. So with a massive disadvantage in performance and a huge disadvantage in reliability, what is the point?
 
I really don't know how Liberty Media didn't get together with Honda, Mclaren and Manor and say hey, we don't want to lose a team and you idiots(looking at Mchonda) need another car testing that POS, so do the math and do a deal.

Since day one this deal has been bad for Honda in absolutely every way. Asked to come back in but on a limiting deal which means if they engine is great, it's Mclaren who get most of the credit anyway. Presumably with exclusivity and being a somewhat works team with a 10 year deal it means they couldn't have their own works team for at least the decade. The doubling up of a real works team where a Honda car with full Honda branding wins everything is where the real marketing value is.

But somehow, instead of being paid for engines, or giving free engines for the marketing value, they are giving free engines paying sponsorship to Mclaren AND paying for half of a very expensive Alonso salary. Where is the value, unless part of the engine problem is they are spending 1/10th what the other teams are per year in development, they are likely spending 100mil a year on engine, another 100mil to effectively pay Mclaren to use it.

Am I missing something? When someone comes to you and asks you to make them a great engine and they want extra clauses to protect themselves like exclusivity, which drastically reduces your potential income(17mil limit for 3 other cards would be ~50mil income a year), surely in any other business or industry and frankly in this one you'd expect Mclaren to pay MORE for such a deal. Like we'll give you 50mil a year for engines and give you free major sponsorship coverage.

The deal is insane, Ron has gone to a company, persuaded them to provide them exclusively, cover all development costs and give Mclaren another 100mil in value(free engines, sponsorship and wages). What idiot at Honda signed such a deal and what idiot(well Ron) couldn't see that such a deal means there is zero profit, only downside and not good reason for Honda to want to dump serious money on engine development?
 
drunkenmaster said:
The deal is insane, Ron has gone to a company, persuaded them to provide them exclusively, cover all development costs and give Mclaren another 100mil in value(free engines, sponsorship and wages). What idiot at Honda signed such a deal and what idiot(well Ron) couldn't see that such a deal means there is zero profit, only downside and not good reason for Honda to want to dump serious money on engine development?
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It just goes to show that Honda doesn't understand how F1 works at all. That's probably why they are having such issues getting a working engine and dealing with the Maclaren corporate culture.
 
I'm really starting to think, considering the amount it's costing them and with one customer, they have absolutely no incentive to actually put money and resources into the engine. I wonder if they are doing it on a shoestring budget. Where say maybe Merc were spending 100mil a year at least up to the start of 2014, Ferrari probably around the same, Renault less until the start of 2016, how much who knows. Maybe Honda are spending 30mil a year because they have absolutely no money coming back to them. Renault even before having their own team, so some more direct chance to make money from sponsorship themselves and championship money, were bringing in say 20mil a year from 2-3 teams. Honda have literally zero money coming to them.... well, maybe they have a deal to get a percentage of the championship winnings but it's still not going to be that much.

I don't see how anyone can say here, have 50mil sponsorship, I was going to say 17mil of free engines... but that would be 4 :p so like 80mil of engines, 20mil of salaries and hey, lets spend 100-150mil on engine development to catch up.
 
deuse said:
True.
Honda are building a F1 engine planet here in the UK. So maybe then they will have people who can build a F1 engine?
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Wow!
Early reports from Honda were that they wanted the engine to be all Honda designed and built in Japan. Sadly for them the UK is probably the best place to move to. Several engines of similar technology in WEC albeit a bit bigger and with 4WD (I believe).
Andi.
 
So it's a case of what happens next. Do McLaren Honda continue with the 2017 campaign. If the performance still reflects the recent testing, they will finish at the back in Melbourne providing the engine lasts the distance. Are both McLaren and Honda prepared to go through with yet another season of negativity on a global stage. Is it worth it?
 
If I remember correctly the contract to enter each season dictates that they have to attend every Grand Prix weekend, so if they pull out of the championship I would imagine there would be some hefty fines. This is going to be a properly painful year for them and I wouldn't be surprised if Alonso retires before the end of it, and possibly even before the start of the European leg!
 
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