McLaren Sign Alonso for 2018

Big Spender

Big Spender

Big Spender

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See McLarens amusing video on their Facebook for the announcement. I'm not surprised hes staying, If they had been staying with Honda then I could have seen him leaving the team/F1 altogether
 
I hope the Renault power unit is competitive. It seems OK in the works Renault and the Red Bull. Not as good as a Merc but it obviously can't be worse than Honda.

It's possible that the McLaren chassis is as good or better than the RB so maybe they'll do well.
 
I predict that McLaren will spend the better part of a year getting the right balance of performance by which time Alonso will get disillusioned and quit. Then 2019 will see them be competitive and his head will explode :p
 
He didn't really have much of a choice to be honest. Although, there is always the chance that McLaren might produce something half decent if the power is there, so perhaps convincing him wasn't so hard. That and nice pay cheque also helps. Hehe.
 
Good deal for both as McLaren allow him to do his other races and also they have a competitive chassis so if the engines work they will be decent next year, All Ifs though :)
 
Think McLaren can challenge for wins next year.
I wouldn't be surprised if they do indeed have the best chassis.

If they do (hard to tell how good/bad the Honda engine is) and if Renault power unit can become more level with Mercedes I don't see why not.

I don't support McLaren in any way but tempted to put an insignificant bet on them winning the WCC
 
Doesn't matter if McLaren do have the best chassis this year. They usually start afresh each year with a new car, make a complete hash of it then make the best improvements through the year to the point they become competitive again. The ability to go faster might actually have made their current car worse as it could affect the tyre temperatures and cause them to drop off much quicker, meaning the team would have to go slower anyway.

This is the first year with these new aero regulations. Red Bull might have a beast of an upgrade ready for next year's car that isn't compatible with this year's chassis. Even Ferrari might have something in development that could give them the leap forwards. It's taken until now for McLaren to find a front wing they were happy with the balance of, over 3/4 the way into the season.

The only reason Horner stopped calling the Renault engine a joke (reliability and power) is because his other alternative was Honda. The Renault engine still has a lot of catching up to do to be a serious challenger for Mercedes.
 
Malt_Vinegar said:
Honda will sort it for next year.
It will be very annoying it's too late for mcl, but I can see it happening :(
Click to expand...

I kind of really want that to happen... I also doubt that Mclaren will just be able to drop the Renault in and suddenly be awesome. They've hardly had a massive amount of time to start preparing the car to receive the Renault and will definitley need to overcome cooling issues and such that will be different from the Honda designs.
 
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