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Verstappen is probably in the same situation now performance wise as last year but the added benefit of Honda money and sole manufacturer engine development for both Redbull teams.

Was McLaren really the problem in their relationship with Honda? They had a pretty crappy year with Merc before they got Honda engines. Granted, Honda were behind, but they pretty much accepted they needed to struggle for a while. McLaren fended off Honda from supplying extra teams, to keep the advantage of exclusitivity and avoiding other teams benefitting from their toils. And now they have left Honda, that prophecy seems to be fulfilled.

If Honda can win (which would have just happened if Mercedes weren't so amazing), McLaren are going to look a bit stupid.

The only silver lining for McLaren is that Lando Norris seems to be a very good addition for a rookie and should bag some points.

I was thinking along the same lines after the race. The McLaren package seems to be underperforming. They've got to be more than a little miffed about their ex being on the podium.

Hard to tell. Honda are now in their fifth year so would Red Bull have been as competitive in 2015/16 as we saw yesterday? I doubt it.

My guess is Red Bull has joined Honda at the right time. That said, I still believe McLaren would be in the midfield yesterday if they were still with them. Their cars just aren't quick enough. Look at last year with Renault - nowhere near the Red Bulls.

https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bull- ... eky-tweet/

Obviously Honda did not produce a top engine but McLaren were clearly at least equal to blame in fact I think they were more to blame, first of all they rushed Honda into F1 before they were really ready, Honda wanted to enter in 2016.

They then forced design constraints upon the engine something that STR did not do which I believe gave Honda more freedom and less pressure although I admit that opinion is open for debate.

Lastly they fooled Honda into believing that they were still a top team something that Honda themselves poignantly referred to when they said it was a pleasure to be working with a top team like Red Bull.

MistaVega23 wrote:Hard to tell. Honda are now in their fifth year so would Red Bull have been as competitive in 2015/16 as we saw yesterday? I doubt it.

My guess is Red Bull has joined Honda at the right time. That said, I still believe McLaren would be in the midfield yesterday if they were still with them. Their cars just aren't quick enough. Look at last year with Renault - nowhere near the Red Bulls.

Red Bull had the capacity to do things differently because they have a junior team, I believe they would have gone down the same route of putting the engine in the STR first be it either in 2015 or 2016 depending if like McLaren, Red Bull would have forced Honda to join F1 a year before they wanted to?

Then when the engine was deemed competitive it would have gone into the Red Bull mirroring what actually did happen, this also would have mirrored how Honda came into F1 with their first turbo engine. It first went into a back marker team were it had a tendency to blow up a fair few times, however when the engine was seen to be very competitive it got grabbed up by a top team.

pendulumeffect wrote:Verstappen is probably in the same situation now performance wise as last year but the added benefit of Honda money and sole manufacturer engine development for both Redbull teams.

Was McLaren really the problem in their relationship with Honda? They had a pretty crappy year with Merc before they got Honda engines. Granted, Honda were behind, but they pretty much accepted they needed to struggle for a while. McLaren fended off Honda from supplying extra teams, to keep the advantage of exclusitivity and avoiding other teams benefitting from their toils. And now they have left Honda, that prophecy seems to be fulfilled.

If Honda can win (which would have just happened if Mercedes weren't so amazing), McLaren are going to look a bit stupid.

The only silver lining for McLaren is that Lando Norris seems to be a very good addition for a rookie and should bag some points.

Chalk and cheese comparison.

Is this the same Honda engine that blew up every five minutes during testing and the race weekends? No.

Honda has had the benefit of being in F1 long enough now. Also, the RBR was capable of consistently fighting for best of the rest last season and even had capability of winning 4 races. Could have won more.

It would be like sticking a Honda or Renault engine in that Merc.... would they end up at the back of the grid? unlikely. They may lose or gain a touch but the car is still capable of being at the front.

Honda have simply improved a lot and not just performance but reliability - which was one of the major issues Mclaren got fed up with. The other main issue was losing out on straight line speed which is usually engine related (even the pundits have said it).

For McLaren-Honda, I feel that it was 50-50. Honda was certainly weaker at that point compared to improvement they made in the meantime. McLaren is obviously in a long technical crisis. I think they need foremost a good aerodynamic specialist for a good car and right after that, an exclusive deal from an engine provider. Third will come a lot of patience, and that will conclude the list. Driver line up is good.

pokerman wrote:

MistaVega23 wrote:Hard to tell. Honda are now in their fifth year so would Red Bull have been as competitive in 2015/16 as we saw yesterday? I doubt it.

My guess is Red Bull has joined Honda at the right time. That said, I still believe McLaren would be in the midfield yesterday if they were still with them. Their cars just aren't quick enough. Look at last year with Renault - nowhere near the Red Bulls.

Red Bull had the capacity to do things differently because they have a junior team, I believe they would have gone down the same route of putting the engine in the STR first be it either in 2015 or 2016 depending if like McLaren, Red Bull would have forced Honda to join F1 a year before they wanted to?

Then when the engine was deemed competitive it would have gone into the Red Bull mirroring what actually did happen, this also would have mirrored how Honda came into F1 with their first turbo engine. It first went into a back marker team were it had a tendency to blow up a fair few times, however when the engine was seen to be very competitive it got grabbed up by a top team.

Good point. Why Honda didn't put their foot down firmer with McLaren I'll never know.

Teddy007 wrote:

pendulumeffect wrote:Verstappen is probably in the same situation now performance wise as last year but the added benefit of Honda money and sole manufacturer engine development for both Redbull teams.

Was McLaren really the problem in their relationship with Honda? They had a pretty crappy year with Merc before they got Honda engines. Granted, Honda were behind, but they pretty much accepted they needed to struggle for a while. McLaren fended off Honda from supplying extra teams, to keep the advantage of exclusitivity and avoiding other teams benefitting from their toils. And now they have left Honda, that prophecy seems to be fulfilled.

If Honda can win (which would have just happened if Mercedes weren't so amazing), McLaren are going to look a bit stupid.

The only silver lining for McLaren is that Lando Norris seems to be a very good addition for a rookie and should bag some points.

Chalk and cheese comparison.

Is this the same Honda engine that blew up every five minutes during testing and the race weekends? No.

Honda has had the benefit of being in F1 long enough now. Also, the RBR was capable of consistently fighting for best of the rest last season and even had capability of winning 4 races. Could have won more.

It would be like sticking a Honda or Renault engine in that Merc.... would they end up at the back of the grid? unlikely. They may lose or gain a touch but the car is still capable of being at the front.

Honda have simply improved a lot and not just performance but reliability - which was one of the major issues Mclaren got fed up with. The other main issue was losing out on straight line speed which is usually engine related (even the pundits have said it).

The idea of the project was to win races and titles, it's true that Honda never came close to delivering but then again neither did McLaren as they are no longer a top team so even if Honda had delivered the project would still have failed at McLaren's end.

The poor straight line speed is also a red herring as McLaren was said to load the car with downforce, maybe this was the best way to achieve lap time, but the affect was to make the car good in the corners but even slower on the straights and then it can be seen as not the problem of the car but it's 100% the engine.

The following season the McLaren was still slow on the straights whilst surprisingly the STR Honda was quite quick on the straights then we began to see that the McLaren was simply inefficient, and did not the realisation in the McLaren hierarchy come about that they had simply been duped and certain designers then got sacked, do people get sacked for one bad car after years of delivering good cars?

Is this really still a question?

It was Mclaren no doubt somehow it was only their Renault engine that went bang.

Also when Mclaren switched to renault, they werent in the same league as Redbull, what is even eye opening is Redbull has not really lost performance with the Honda engine.

Yeah, McLaren were working overtime towards the end of 2017 to apportion blame Honda for their poor performance in recent years - but the signs were there in their last 2 seasons with Merc.

Remember all that rubbish about "we have the best chassis on the grid, the engine is letting us down" ... bull crap!

This season on confirms that the car was just much of a problem as they claimed the engine was. Cause they're still scrambling for 1 point and here we are celebrating Honda's first podium in 10 years.

Here comes the revisionism about it all being McLaren's fault but here's some actual facts...

Honda didn't know anything about energy recovery when they entered, not McLaren's fault and would've been the same with any team. That includes the much less complicated 'K', never mind the 'H'. They openly admitted needing Macca's help with this in an end of year review two years ago.

Honda said very clearly they were in joint discussions about "size zero" and it was a joint decision.

Honda didn't introduce lean burn until 2017, not McLaren's fault it took so long. (One year after even Renault for perspective of competitiveness at that stage)

It didn't even work when they did introduce it until Spain 2017 when allegedly McLaren made them get outside help from Ilien and AVL.

They didn't introduce their "extra harvest" until Monza 2017. This is when they were in Renault's ballpark for the first time but still behind in power and much less reliable.

They said in 2016 they weren't ready to supply any other team so the idea they could've gained from supplying someone else while their product was substandard and unreliable obviously isn't shared by Honda themselves so I've no idea why it was so oft repeated.

Honda's engine budget wasn't what it has been since the split. They've also stopped rotating engineers at Sakura every few months like they did with McLaren. They viewed HRD as a learning ground to begin with so every 6 months McLaren had new inexperienced engineers to work with.

It was GPS and rival engineers that placed the chassis in the top 3 for the end of 2016 according to James Allen after Ferrari stopped developing. McLaren repeated their ONE of the best chassis talk after this but they, and Alonso, also talked about lagging in ALL areas to the top cars throughout 2017 but that's not juicy enough to gain any traction so we just get stuck with the "They think they've the best chassis" nonsense.

McLaren stopped developing the '32 in September 2017 when they announced the switch and focused on the new rear end for the Renault. For 2017 they had already started work on a new front end concept which missed the start of 2018 because they could'n't get it past the crash test. It didn't arrive until Spain. They lost their hydraulic trick suspension for 2018 too which hurt them. They also lost blowing the monkey seat for 2018. The engine switch caused an airflow issue with the 2018 '33 that ended up meaning they barely developed the car and fell to last.

So they've basically not had solid development on one concept since the middle of 2017 and people are surprised they are behind and Honda's issues don't magically disappear with another team. Give Red Bull a lean burn-lessm Ilien-less, AVL-less Honda engine from 2016 or basically before Monza 2017 and they aren't getting a sniff of a podium either, they could barely get one with the lean burn having Renault.

Of course McLaren were the problem. That is why they went for a restructure. You don't do that if you were making race winning chasis and get it wrong once. They realized it last year that they were always and midfield and made a change in management which is good. I am sure they can rebuild from there. Honda was the 4th best engine and they never claimed any better. We also have to think how bad their 2016 PU really was. Mclaren were in the midfield were they really belonged. But was Honda perhaps wrong to change PU concept thinking the mclaren was a top chasis and should have been finishing races further up the field. Maybe if they stuck with the concept they would have been further along.

It doesn't have to be either-or. More likely Honda engine was bad and the McLaren wasn't the best car.
Now the Honda engine has improved substantially and it is in the back of what most would consider to be at least one of the best chassis on the grid.

I think basically there has been an improvement on two fronts so it is not a surprise that the net improvement is substantial.

Covalent wrote:

https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bull- ... eky-tweet/

lol.

I would say Mclaren has been a midfielder for quite sometime now and no where near RBR. Mclaren were arrogant and believed that they are a top team, RBR level and Honda is dragging them down. If Mclaren uses Mercedes engine I still think they cannot beat RBR. There is a good chance Max can fight for the title next year.

Lotus49 wrote:Here comes the revisionism about it all being McLaren's fault but here's some actual facts...

Honda didn't know anything about energy recovery when they entered, not McLaren's fault and would've been the same with any team. That includes the much less complicated 'K', never mind the 'H'. They openly admitted needing Macca's help with this in an end of year review two years ago.

Honda said very clearly they were in joint discussions about "size zero" and it was a joint decision.

Honda didn't introduce lean burn until 2017, not McLaren's fault it took so long. (One year after even Renault for perspective of competitiveness at that stage)

It didn't even work when they did introduce it until Spain 2017 when allegedly McLaren made them get outside help from Ilien and AVL.

They didn't introduce their "extra harvest" until Monza 2017. This is when they were in Renault's ballpark for the first time but still behind in power and much less reliable.

They said in 2016 they weren't ready to supply any other team so the idea they could've gained from supplying someone else while their product was substandard and unreliable obviously isn't shared by Honda themselves so I've no idea why it was so oft repeated.

Honda's engine budget wasn't what it has been since the split. They've also stopped rotating engineers at Sakura every few months like they did with McLaren. They viewed HRD as a learning ground to begin with so every 6 months McLaren had new inexperienced engineers to work with.

It was GPS and rival engineers that placed the chassis in the top 3 for the end of 2016 according to James Allen after Ferrari stopped developing. McLaren repeated their ONE of the best chassis talk after this but they, and Alonso, also talked about lagging in ALL areas to the top cars throughout 2017 but that's not juicy enough to gain any traction so we just get stuck with the "They think they've the best chassis" nonsense.

McLaren stopped developing the '32 in September 2017 when they announced the switch and focused on the new rear end for the Renault. For 2017 they had already started work on a new front end concept which missed the start of 2018 because they could'n't get it past the crash test. It didn't arrive until Spain. They lost their hydraulic trick suspension for 2018 too which hurt them. They also lost blowing the monkey seat for 2018. The engine switch caused an airflow issue with the 2018 '33 that ended up meaning they barely developed the car and fell to last.

So they've basically not had solid development on one concept since the middle of 2017 and people are surprised they are behind and Honda's issues don't magically disappear with another team. Give Red Bull a lean burn-lessm Ilien-less, AVL-less Honda engine from 2016 or basically before Monza 2017 and they aren't getting a sniff of a podium either, they could barely get one with the lean burn having Renault.

Add to that that Honda's testing was done with a single cylinder test bench (which worked fine I believe), but there was an issue when they were trying the whole engine, or something like that.

Also added to above we need to remember the better McLaren chassis's in 2016 and 2017 still had funding from the sponsors lost and Ferrari didn't have the full chassis dyno operating until 2016 so they didn't get the benefit of it until their own 2017 car so both budget wise and development tool wise McLaren were closer to the big 3 then (2015 for the 2016 car) than they are now. The gap has been growing all the time with the teams that have the full chassis dyno's and Red Bull gaining Exxon and Tag from McLaren allowed that gap to grow further.

So you have to take the knock on effects from Honda's troubles into account if you are being fair. I don't think anyone actually felt McLaren had the best chassis or were on Red Bull's level but they would easily have got a podium in 2016/17 with THIS Honda engine, 2016 especially though.

Consider where you'd expect a team that had a year old front end, a compromised new rear end and an inherent aero issue (mcl33) to fall in the pecking order if you already felt they were struggling in the midfield the previous year. Then add them losing their trick suspension. Then add losing blowing the monkey seat which apparently Honda had good maps for. I'd be expecting a Williams type affair, right? A team well off the midfield pace at least, right? Well Alonso should have qualified 7th in Oz last year, the car looked 5/6th best at worst on launch.

So if that's where it fell to then where was it the previous year when it had the two tricks and was a single concept with no aero issue and it was going against other 2017 cars rather than 2018 ones like the '33 was when it was still 5th or 6th best? It possibly being 4th and closer to the top 3 than the midfield is hardly much of a stretch I don't think.

It could easily have fallen bang in that big gap between RB and Renault in 2017 which would still fit with Alonso's comments about lagging to the top cars but their errors since have left them where they are now. They still look 5/6th best this year even and that's despite the year long no development of the '33 and falling to dead last the previous year.

I'm sure any improvement over the next two years will be put down to the new guys coming in but just having one concept they can actually continually develop without major changes for the first time since the 2015/16 cars will surely help too. That's where their own financial and facility advantages over everyone outside the top 3 but Renault will start paying off. Although the B team situation changes this somewhat because it means parts of those cars actually have more money behind them than the Macca does (Haas using a Ferrari suspension for example) so it complicates it a bit.

AravJ wrote:Of course McLaren were the problem. That is why they went for a restructure. You don't do that if you were making race winning chasis and get it wrong once. They realized it last year that they were always and midfield and made a change in management which is good. I am sure they can rebuild from there. Honda was the 4th best engine and they never claimed any better. We also have to think how bad their 2016 PU really was. Mclaren were in the midfield were they really belonged. But was Honda perhaps wrong to change PU concept thinking the mclaren was a top chasis and should have been finishing races further up the field. Maybe if they stuck with the concept they would have been further along.

Indeed

2013 Mercedes - midfield
2014 Mercedes - midfield
2015 Honda
2016 Honda
2017 Honda
2018 Renault - midfield
2019 Renault - midfield

Honda clearly failed McLaren but were Mclaren ever going to be challenging the top teams when they've been building midfield cars for the past 7 years?

I think this thread rather ignores the facts for the purpose of attacking McLaren. Yes, McLaren clearly didn't have a championship-capable car in the Honda years - but if this Honda engine (the best ever, according to everyone involved) still isn't more than optimistically equal to Ferrari and Mercedes, it's pretty clear that Honda also wasn't ready when they were with McLaren. This is not the same engine from 2015, 2016 or even 2017.

EDIT: Additionally, according to this article Honda still doesn't think they've equaled the top two.

Exediron wrote:I think this thread rather ignores the facts for the purpose of attacking McLaren. Yes, McLaren clearly didn't have a championship-capable car in the Honda years - but if this Honda engine (the best ever, according to everyone involved) still isn't more than optimistically equal to Ferrari and Mercedes, it's pretty clear that Honda also wasn't ready when they were with McLaren. This is not the same engine from 2015, 2016 or even 2017.

EDIT: Additionally, according to this article Honda still doesn't think they've equaled the top two.

The Honda engine in those first couple of years was undoubtedly woeful. However the reason people have turned on McLaren was that they gave the impression it was all the engine's fault and that the chassis was one of the best, which is hard to believe on the evidence of last season and the start of this season now that the Renault engine gives them a proper benchmark. They effectively threw Honda under the bus to cover up their own failings, and given the damage done to the Honda brand in that period I'm surprised it didn't leave McLaren open to legal action.

Lotus49 wrote:Here comes the revisionism about it all being McLaren's fault but here's some actual facts...

Honda didn't know anything about energy recovery when they entered, not McLaren's fault and would've been the same with any team. That includes the much less complicated 'K', never mind the 'H'. They openly admitted needing Macca's help with this in an end of year review two years ago.

Honda said very clearly they were in joint discussions about "size zero" and it was a joint decision.

Honda didn't introduce lean burn until 2017, not McLaren's fault it took so long. (One year after even Renault for perspective of competitiveness at that stage)

It didn't even work when they did introduce it until Spain 2017 when allegedly McLaren made them get outside help from Ilien and AVL.

They didn't introduce their "extra harvest" until Monza 2017. This is when they were in Renault's ballpark for the first time but still behind in power and much less reliable.

They said in 2016 they weren't ready to supply any other team so the idea they could've gained from supplying someone else while their product was substandard and unreliable obviously isn't shared by Honda themselves so I've no idea why it was so oft repeated.

Honda's engine budget wasn't what it has been since the split. They've also stopped rotating engineers at Sakura every few months like they did with McLaren. They viewed HRD as a learning ground to begin with so every 6 months McLaren had new inexperienced engineers to work with.

It was GPS and rival engineers that placed the chassis in the top 3 for the end of 2016 according to James Allen after Ferrari stopped developing. McLaren repeated their ONE of the best chassis talk after this but they, and Alonso, also talked about lagging in ALL areas to the top cars throughout 2017 but that's not juicy enough to gain any traction so we just get stuck with the "They think they've the best chassis" nonsense.

McLaren stopped developing the '32 in September 2017 when they announced the switch and focused on the new rear end for the Renault. For 2017 they had already started work on a new front end concept which missed the start of 2018 because they could'n't get it past the crash test. It didn't arrive until Spain. They lost their hydraulic trick suspension for 2018 too which hurt them. They also lost blowing the monkey seat for 2018. The engine switch caused an airflow issue with the 2018 '33 that ended up meaning they barely developed the car and fell to last.

So they've basically not had solid development on one concept since the middle of 2017 and people are surprised they are behind and Honda's issues don't magically disappear with another team. Give Red Bull a lean burn-lessm Ilien-less, AVL-less Honda engine from 2016 or basically before Monza 2017 and they aren't getting a sniff of a podium either, they could barely get one with the lean burn having Renault.

Good points made and now Honda/Red Bull have a test team in Torro Rosso for a second season.

One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Probably hoping to hammer the point about theirs being 'one of the best' chassis

MistaVega23 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Probably hoping to hammer the point about theirs being 'one of the best' chassis

Yes that's were I was going with that.

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

My post was in relation to Red bull being fastest through the speed traps and that it isn't necessarily true that they have caught up on power (though I am hoping they have). We all know drag can vastly affect outright speed and running low downforce will lower drag.
Why you had to take that and turn it to a McLaren bashing post, completely out of context from where the discussion was going, is a mystery to me. Why can't people discuss things without needing to use any post they can to put down a team/driver?

j man wrote:

Exediron wrote:I think this thread rather ignores the facts for the purpose of attacking McLaren. Yes, McLaren clearly didn't have a championship-capable car in the Honda years - but if this Honda engine (the best ever, according to everyone involved) still isn't more than optimistically equal to Ferrari and Mercedes, it's pretty clear that Honda also wasn't ready when they were with McLaren. This is not the same engine from 2015, 2016 or even 2017.

EDIT: Additionally, according to this article Honda still doesn't think they've equaled the top two.

The Honda engine in those first couple of years was undoubtedly woeful. However the reason people have turned on McLaren was that they gave the impression it was all the engine's fault and that the chassis was one of the best, which is hard to believe on the evidence of last season and the start of this season now that the Renault engine gives them a proper benchmark. They effectively threw Honda under the bus to cover up their own failings, and given the damage done to the Honda brand in that period I'm surprised it didn't leave McLaren open to legal action.

Only if you choose to listen to the quotes you want though which is entirely a personal choice. They also said they lacked to the top guys far more often than they claimed the opposite, it was just ignored in favour of the 2 or 3 juicier comments like Alonso's Mexico one.

It also wasn't just Macca praising the car, the GPS we all base our opinions on in the MercvsFervsRedB thread and rival engineers praised the 2016 car especially.

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Because their trick suspension allowed them too and it gave them the best overall performance.

dompclarke wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

My post was in relation to Red bull being fastest through the speed traps and that it isn't necessarily true that they have caught up on power (though I am hoping they have). We all know drag can vastly affect outright speed and running low downforce will lower drag.
Why you had to take that and turn it to a McLaren bashing post, completely out of context from where the discussion was going, is a mystery to me. Why can't people discuss things without needing to use any post they can to put down a team/driver?

So you wouldn't be seeing it as an example with how teams normally deal with engines that lack power and isn't the forum used to critique drivers and teams?

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Because their trick suspension allowed them too and it gave them the best overall performance.

Says them

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Because their trick suspension allowed them too and it gave them the best overall performance.

Fair enough it just also had the unfortunate affect of the Honda being seen as even slower on the straight?

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Because their trick suspension allowed them too and it gave them the best overall performance.

But they kept on complaining of losing a second or so on the straight because of the low top speed. They never said they intended it with trick suspension. Mclaren pulled the wool over everybody's eyes. No need to find excuses for them, they got caught out by what was probably the most expensive lie in F1 history. And they are making changes. I am sure all midfield teams can have similar excuses for not breaking the midfield except they also have alot less facilities than mclaren.

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

My post was in relation to Red bull being fastest through the speed traps and that it isn't necessarily true that they have caught up on power (though I am hoping they have). We all know drag can vastly affect outright speed and running low downforce will lower drag.
Why you had to take that and turn it to a McLaren bashing post, completely out of context from where the discussion was going, is a mystery to me. Why can't people discuss things without needing to use any post they can to put down a team/driver?

So you wouldn't be seeing it as an example with how teams normally deal with engines that lack power and isn't the forum used to critique drivers and teams?

The way you wrote it no. I make a comment on the current situation and that Honda may not have gained as much as it appears, you skip that fact and go back to something irrelevant to how Honda and Red bull are currently doing to bash McLaren. Yes their performance in the past was not up to speed, we are well aware of that, however it was irrelevant to the point being made

This is interesting Helmut believes they are ony 10bhp down on the Mercedes..


http://www.gptoday.com/full_story/view/ ... n_Mercedes__/

This is Toto talking about how max could be challenging if Honda keeps up with its development or reliability ?

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/33100/ve ... wolff.html

sandman1347 wrote:

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Because their trick suspension allowed them too and it gave them the best overall performance.

Says them

For the latter yeah but the former was AMuS I think. And its pretty believable unless people actually think they were deliberately costing themselves lap time which is silly.

pokerman wrote:

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Because their trick suspension allowed them too and it gave them the best overall performance.

Fair enough it just also had the unfortunate affect of the Honda being seen as even slower on the straight?

That's not really Macca's problem though. This was 2017 and I don't think making Honda look better than they were at the cost of lap time was high on their list of priorities at that point.

Nor should it be.

AravJ wrote:

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

dompclarke wrote:

sandman1347 wrote:One thing I will say is that I believe that Honda will eventually surpass Ferrari and Mercedes in terms of engine performance. This is a lot like the 80s Turbo era to me. Now that they've got things sorted, I expect Honda to reach the top in terms of performance. Red Bull were fastest through the traps In Melbourne. Not sure if I can recall ever seeing that while they were Renault customers.

As for McLaren; they are in no man's land. They are in the mid-field with a terrible power unit and a mediocre chassis. I think they need to go back to Merc with their tails between their legs. hell; even Ferrari would probably supply them with a PU now that they no longer pose much of a threat. They need to ditch the Renault PU ASAP.

Though I hope Honda have caught up Red bull did admit they were running a lower downforce configuration than ideal which would lead to a higher top speed...

Circling back to McLaren when they had a Honda engine that was worse they chose to run more downforce which made the Honda look even worse and again perhaps asks why did they do that?

Because their trick suspension allowed them too and it gave them the best overall performance.

But they kept on complaining of losing a second or so on the straight because of the low top speed. They never said they intended it with trick suspension. Mclaren pulled the wool over everybody's eyes. No need to find excuses for them, they got caught out by what was probably the most expensive lie in F1 history. And they are making changes. I am sure all midfield teams can have similar excuses for not breaking the midfield except they also have alot less facilities than mclaren.

No they complained of a lack of power. They could achieve higher top speed easily by stripping the car of its d/f but what's the point if it takes your tyres out of the optimal operating range and the now lack of d/f costs you too much time everywhere else compared to what you've gained just on the straights. More power allows you to achieve respectable speed on the straights while running optimal d/f levels and Honda couldn't deliver enough power back then to achieve it.

No excuses needed, I'm just using all the information rather than just the bits that fit my preferred narrative. There are lots of areas McLaren messed up on during the partnership that I'd readily agree to. The state of the Honda PU between 2014 and 2018 or this idea it was McLaren's job to cost themselves lap time to make Honda look better than they really were on the straights in 2017 certainly isn't among them, its nonsensical.