Mclaren Honda 2015

[turbof1]

Quite low. I get where you are coming from; the livery would perfectly fit a Coca Cola Zero sponsoring, but social media would utterly destroy the reputation of both (something like Zero sugar, Zero horsepower)

[damager21]

Quite low. I get where you are coming from; the livery would perfectly fit a Coca Cola Zero sponsoring, but social media would utterly destroy the reputation of both (something like Zero sugar, Zero horsepower)

I agree, but I am thinking more from a next year perspective when McLaren Honda should be more competitive. The current Black and Red livery suits very well with Coca Cola Zero colors. In fact if McLaren was to switch to White and Red livery of 80s, the mother brand - Coca Cola, would fit very well with that as well.



In fact the 2013 livery of McLaren suits Diet Coke.



Minute Maid Orange - M7A livery


I think its a great opportunity for Coca Cola to work with McLaren and promote different brands. All colors work well with their past and current McLaren livery.

[hollus]

Its quite amazing, the colors and lately even the patterns are spot on!

[turbof1]

I'm removing all post related to the small event of unfortunate and unintended clash. I'm happy to note it got handled in the background and both parties sorted things out with a friendly handshake.

Cultural differences sometimes are an issue. You have members from all across the globe coming together at one single board. It's only natural sometimes it'll clash. The important thing is that we take lessons from it and understand what went wrong, and that both sides realize it was not meant as an insult. These 2 gents did so, so thumbs up for them.

[PlatinumZealot]

Supposed Honda already knew this design was rubbish from the middle of 2014 but it was too late to rectify for 2015?
It is entirely possible. Remember at the begining of the season Arai said they are evaluating two designs.... that second design can actually be the unraced 2016 design and the 2015 engine is the test bed...

[Thunder]

Button on Peter Prodromou and the Guys in Woking. Sounds very positive.

http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/138 ... son-button

[Abarth]

It would be nice if discussion about the engine could be had in the Honda _Engine_ thread.
As it is now, it's quite a mess....

[ChrisF1]

Button on Peter Prodromou and the Guys in Woking. Sounds very positive.

It would sound positive, it's the guys in woking. I tihnk we're all agreed that they're only 3-7 tenths of the 2.5 second problem...

[mclaren111]

At this stage of the year (with Honda being so bad), I think they should only test items on chassis that will help next year !!

It is senseless spending a fortune on MP4-30 with no hope of fighting the Mid-pack

Can not wait for 2016 [-o< [-o< [-o<

[Thunder]

As the MP4-31 will base on the MP4-30 Aero concept every Part they bring helps evaluation for next Year AND helps for this Year. That's the beauty of continuing an Aero Concept, something McLaren seemed to have forgotten to use.

[mrluke]

Button on Peter Prodromou and the Guys in Woking. Sounds very positive.

It would sound positive, it's the guys in woking. I tihnk we're all agreed that they're only 3-7 tenths of the 2.5 second problem...

I really feel for Honda that this is the perception.

From Melbourne to Suzuka in 2014 the average gap from the best qualifying Mclaren to Pole was 1.708s

For the same period in 2015 (excluding sepang due to in Q1) was 2.818.

You could make the argument that the difference between a 1st Gen Honda and a 2nd Gen Mercedes PU is 1.1s on average. But laying the blame at Hondas door for the 1.7s deficit carried forward from 2014 is unjustifiable.

For the majority of races the difference between Mclarens 2014 and 2015 qualifying time is less than 0.5s

[Moose]

Button on Peter Prodromou and the Guys in Woking. Sounds very positive.

It would sound positive, it's the guys in woking. I tihnk we're all agreed that they're only 3-7 tenths of the 2.5 second problem...

I really feel for Honda that this is the perception.

From Melbourne to Suzuka in 2014 the average gap from the best qualifying Mclaren to Pole was 1.708s

For the same period in 2015 (excluding sepang due to in Q1) was 2.818.

You could make the argument that the difference between a 1st Gen Honda and a 2nd Gen Mercedes PU is 1.1s on average. But laying the blame at Hondas door for the 1.7s deficit carried forward from 2014 is unjustifiable.

For the majority of races the difference between Mclarens 2014 and 2015 qualifying time is less than 0.5s

I don't think it's justifiable to expect a team like McLaren to maintain a 1.7 second deficit in terms of aero performance. The team has pumped out good aero designs year after year, and with the exception of 2009 and 2014 has had a very high hit rate. Looking at 2009, it's clear that the team are perfectly capable of understanding issues with aero design and fixing them. Looking at the 2015 car, it's clear that the team have made significant aero changes.

While I agree that it's not possible to tell if it's honda's fault, I think it's unreasonable to simply say "the gap was 1.7 seconds in 2014, therefore 1.7 seconds of the gap in 2015 is aero".

Further to that, some of the gap in 2014 was known to be engine based - McLaren were not the works team, and more so, did not even have the fancy pants package that Williams bought. They certainly were not running the Mercedes engine as well as it could be run.

More so, even looking at lap times this year and observing where the car is slow does not give us a clear picture of where the McLaren's weaknesses lie, simply because its aero setup has clearly been biased towards straight line speed in order to compensate for a weak engine.

[diffuser]

I really feel for Honda that this is the perception.

At this point it is more than Perception. Even Arai has said that the KERS runs out of Juice long before everyone else.

FACT McLaren Honda are short on 180bhp for long periods of a lap(the amount of time depends on the circuit).

Don't worry Honda will get over it. Beside 3 out 4 PU manufactures got it wrong and none of them had the time constrains that Honda had.

[mrluke]

I don't think it's justifiable to expect a team like McLaren to maintain a 1.7 second deficit in terms of aero performance. The team has pumped out good aero designs year after year, and with the exception of 2009 and 2014 has had a very high hit rate. Looking at 2009, it's clear that the team are perfectly capable of understanding issues with aero design and fixing them. Looking at the 2015 car, it's clear that the team have made significant aero changes.

While I agree that it's not possible to tell if it's honda's fault, I think it's unreasonable to simply say "the gap was 1.7 seconds in 2014, therefore 1.7 seconds of the gap in 2015 is aero".

Further to that, some of the gap in 2014 was known to be engine based - McLaren were not the works team, and more so, did not even have the fancy pants package that Williams bought. They certainly were not running the Mercedes engine as well as it could be run.

More so, even looking at lap times this year and observing where the car is slow does not give us a clear picture of where the McLaren's weaknesses lie, simply because its aero setup has clearly been biased towards straight line speed in order to compensate for a weak engine.

I can trawl through the data for 2013 as well if you think that would help but I expect the picture to be much the same.

Have mclaren made 1.0s + improvement to their aero over the winter of 2014... I think its pretty unlikely, just compare their front wing to Mercedes or RBR.

I really feel for Honda that this is the perception.

At this point it is more than Perception. Even Arai has said that the KERS runs out of Juice long before everyone else.

FACT McLaren Honda are short on 180bhp for long periods of a lap(the amount of time depends on the circuit).

Don't worry Honda will get over it. Beside 3 out 4 PU manufactures got it wrong and none of them had the time constrains that Honda had.

FACT its 161bhp...

Even with this deficit Mclaren times this year are very close to last year.

However I still credited the Honda engine with 1.1s of the deficit, I didnt say it was the class of the field but if you put the latest merc engine into the Mclaren I dont think you will gain much more than a second.

This is further supported by the lap time gap between force india, Williams and then Mercedes. who are typically 1.0s+ ahead during qualy.

[NL_Fer]

I guess we will have to see what Honda will cough up next year. If McLaren continues this size zero concept, Honda will have to deliver proper performance from their small engine, which i think is impossible. A bulkier engine, with a larger turbo will give them on par performance, but Promodeu will alter the chassis to a size two.