Red Bull to use Honda Engines...

I raised the question of why no **** seems to be sticking to Eric Boullier through all of this. No matter how well respected he may have been in the past, he's been there for more than long enough now to bear some responsibility for the performance deficit.
 
The_Abyss said:
I raised the question of why no **** seems to be sticking to Eric Boullier through all of this. No matter how well respected he may have been in the past, he's been there for more than long enough now to bear some responsibility for the performance deficit.
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Teflon Eric only a matter of time before the coating wears off. In fact hasn't it already started since Zak Brown took over race operations, effectively demoted Eric.
 
XeNoN89 said:
How stupid do McLaren look now lol :D

Blamed their crappy car all on the engine.
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It has been a bit of a meme for McLaren to have the best chassis on the grid. However with Renault power, they can't really hide behind that excuse anymore. RB and the works Renault are both better than them, and by quite a bit. McLaren presumably don't have as great a package as they thought. I expect Honda RB to seriously challenge for the title given TR's performance.
 
The best chassis thing was to boost their own team morale:

Zak Brown conceded in a recent interview with F1.com that the noise around McLaren having the best chassis last season was more about team psychology and morale than anything firmly grounded in reality.
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https://wtf1.com/post/mclarens-best-chassis-claim-last-year-was-about-lifting-team-morale/

I think RB have made the right decision. Renault seem to have a terrible attitude towards RB and are clearly ruthless about pushing their works team back to the top. With an independent engine supply RB will get more control and no issues regarding upgrades being filtered down or the works team holding anything back. Honda clearly aren't going to throw in the towel and reports on the relationship with them is positive. I'd love to see Honda on the podium with RB, and I'm beginning to believe that's entirely possible now.

I do fear it could have a big driver impact and might scare away Ric or Max. Talk of Ric moving on but that's unlikely IMO and if Honda aren't up to top team levels of performance next year it could hurt Ricciardos career.
 
Even as far to go as branding their engines being made by a bloody watch maker :D

Imagine if Ferrari win the title and Red Bull Honda start winning races next season. Alonso would be on suicide watch
 
Dup said:
Renault seem to have a terrible attitude towards RB and are clearly ruthless about pushing their works team back to the top.
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Let's not be too hasty in re-writing history. Yes, the relationship has changed in the past couple of years with the return of a Renault works team, but up to that point and even beyond it, Renault have bent over backwards to accommodate and work with Red Bull for years. They were instrumental in much of the success of the Vettel years.

There's no harm in being ruthless about pushing the works team to the top - are Renault doing anything differently to Mercedes and Ferrari? They certainly seem to be less restrictive over the engine use than Mercedes.
 
If Honda deliver a good engine next year.. Alonso had probably had the worst luck moving teams!

Not that he hasn't made a pretty penny doing so
 
Oh don't get me wrong, RB have been as vocal and ruthless also. I remain impartial when it comes to F1 (since button left). My point being was that RB can only succeed if they aren't a customer team when there's a works team involved. This move could be good for the sport.

I'm in the area of hope that Renault put their money where their mouth is and get their cars up the front and Honda keep Red Bull up there keeping Ferrari and Merc honest too. Less politics at the front of the grid and more potential for more race winners and competition.

Now just the subject of following other cars and overtaking to sort out :D
 
think some of you guys are a bit harsh with Renault and McLaren

1. the McLaren/Renault deal was finalized rather late not giving McLaren enough time to develop the car
2. McLaren are doing way better than last year, whereas Torro Rosso isn't lighting the world on fire. let's get real. they were more competitive last year, esp since Grosjean has been ruining any chances for Haas, which is a better package than Torro Rosso's. this wasn't the case last year
3. RB are the ones who have had the poor attitude towards Renault who helped them with 4 titles and have given them works engines, unlike Ferrari and Mercedes with their partners

having worked with Japanese, I am not sure Horner and his big mouth is going to be a good fit with Honda. He will need to adjust his attitude since that kind of stuff doesn't go over well in Japan

seems Williams have replaced McLaren at the back, maybe time to look to replace Mrs Williams and stop the nepotism

PS I would like to see Ricciardo at Ferrari next year. he doesn't get the love he deserves, as apposed to the arrogant brat, who isn't a rookie anymore and fails to deliver consistently
 
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I was hyping McLaren up before pre-season, expecting them to be ~3 tenths behind Red Bull, but they've been far worse than I expected. Both McLarens were 1.4 seconds slower than both Red Bulls in Q2 in Montreal. 1.4 seconds! And 0.8 slower than the slowest Renault! In comparison last year Alonso (the sole Q2 representative) was 0.8 seconds slower than the Red Bulls (and sandwiched the Renaults).

I get that they didn't have an awful lot of time to get the Renault engines installed perfectly, but Toro Rosso managed to get the Honda in fine and achieved a better result this year than McLaren ever did (either with Honda or Renault engines).

Let's see how 2019 pans out. The McLaren should be better (excuses, which were pretty weak, will be non-existent next year) and there are still plenty of question marks over Honda (sounded like an old-fashioned engine failure in FP2, though it may have been an old unit), but it's certainly hard to be optimistic about McLaren at the moment.

I was hoping McLaren would be challenging for the odd podium by the end of the year, but they're struggling to get out of Q1 at the moment.
 
lunarwolf said:
2. McLaren are doing way better than last year
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Really? They appear to be going backwards relative to the competition if recent qualifying is anything to go by - Alonso 15th in Canada, 16th here in France. Weren't they supposed to be up challenging the Red Bulls this season? Here they've only got Hartley's Torro Rosso (in-between them on laptime, at the back due to engine penalties) and the utterly awful Williams cars behind them. Meanwhile Charles Leclerc in a Sauber - a ******* Sauber! - can get up into the top 10 shootout.

this_is_gav - as far as the whole thing about not having much time to get the engine and car designs mated, Brawn won a title with a chassis that had six inches lopped off the back to make a different engine fit. Granted, these power units are more complex than the old 2.4 V8s. But if Brawn could make an engine with a different crank height at least vaguely work then I'm sure McLaren could have gotten the Renault in properly before the season started! :D
 
Given that the engine regulations prescribed just about every allowable dimension from bore spacing, max/min stroke and even the CofG and mandated a fixed bolt pattern for the bell housing so that different gearboxes could be fitted I'm surprised that the crank could be that far out.

More importantly the Brawn had an outwash front wing, which gave it a huge aero advantage (though its significance was lost with the arguments regarding the double diffusers). Those kind of aero tricks don't exist these days.
 
JRS said:
this_is_gav - as far as the whole thing about not having much time to get the engine and car designs mated, Brawn won a title with a chassis that had six inches lopped off the back to make a different engine fit. Granted, these power units are more complex than the old 2.4 V8s. But if Brawn could make an engine with a different crank height at least vaguely work then I'm sure McLaren could have gotten the Renault in properly before the season started! :D
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It wasn't me that said that, I was responding to Lunarwolf (and qualified it by saying Toro Rosso seemed to have no such problems going the other way).
 
McLaren's choice of engine supplier is still not quite as bad as Alonso's timing for leaving teams.

Didn't Honda supply engines a year earlier than originally planned?
If so, I don't doubt they learned a lot more with the running they had every race weekend (At least until one part or another let go), than in the factory alone - without that I wonder how far away they'd still be.
In particular it quickly dispelled the spurious claims of being 'a bit' down on power from Mercedes and Ferrari, though it took a bit longer for 'the best chassis on the grid' claims to be smashed in to dust.

I do sympathise with McLaren somewhat, though. I saw an interview with Ron Dennis where his feeling was they could never win a championship while they were a customer of a works team.
I can't disagree with his logic, but with the benefit of hindsight the timing of the decision was disastrous.
 
Little_Crow said:
I do sympathise with McLaren somewhat, though. I saw an interview with Ron Dennis where his feeling was they could never win a championship while they were a customer of a works team.
I can't disagree with his logic, but with the benefit of hindsight the timing of the decision was disastrous.
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It's quite disagreeable logic though. Red Bull are a customer and vastly outperform the works team. It's not impossible. They'd probably be very competitive if they stuck with Mercedes.
 
It's a rarity though, no matter how far back you look. Few teams have won a championship as a customer since the DFV days - only Brawn by my reckoning, and that car was a works Honda car with a Mercedes bolted in the back. Before the DFV years I think the only ones are Cooper and Lotus with Climax engines.

Even Red Bull's championships were with a works Renault deal, and they won't win with a Renault in the hybrid era (barring the shock of all shocks).
 
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