2016 McLaren F1 Team - Honda

[Vasconia]

I'm actually expecting Renault to improve by much more than Honda. I think their PU can one-up Ferrari before the end of the season.

McLaren-Honda need a miracle for 2017.

Dont worry guys, McLaren sais Honda is not far from the Mercedes and Ferrari. We must be in another reality...

[Andres125sx]

sorry doble post

[Andres125sx]

ALO was blocked by BUT, let's say ALO is 0.3s faster than BUT, if ALO is behind BUT, then ALO may finish just behind BUT. If ALO can pass BUT, ALO may be 20 seconds ahead of BUT when he cross the line.

So the race is over for ALO after the first corner.

Oh come on...If Alonso was so much faster than Button, he would overtake Button... Alonso fans allways trying to find excuses when Alonso does not deliver...

... beause in F1 overtaking has no difficulty at all as we all know, specially on tracks like Montmelo it is quite easy.... oh wait


After second pit-stop Jenson got some seconds advantage thanks to being called to pit first, privilege for first car on track always. Then Alonso went to pits too, and from that point he went 0,7-1,0 seconds faster per lap, until he was on jenson´s slipstream again.

It is very easy to see if you remove all drivers except Jenson and Fernando
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2016/05/15/2 ... test-laps/

[sarcasm]But it must be we Alonso fans who see weird things, fans who do not look at lap charts probably know better than us because they´re that wise [/sarcasm]

[Sonador]

Jenson was saving fuel at the start of the race, and Fernando went the other way.
Jenson confirmed this in a post race interview with sky.

This feulsaving and tyresaving is confusing to fans.

[Sayeman]

What's with the chatter about Fernando leaving for Mercedes and Rosberg to Ferrari?

[ALO_Power]

Come on guys with all that pessimism !
"McLaren never caught RBR since 2009" , "McLaren-Honda needs to make miracles for 2017". Just chill out. We're not even in the 1st half of the season and a lot guys seem to have short memory. The progress that has been done so far is TERRIFIC. Just think ! Honda came to F1 after sooooooo many years of absence and apart from that (which is already a huge disadvantage) they have 1 year of experience less (which is almost 2 years behind if u count the limited track time of 2015) than any other on V6 Hybrid PUs . So they obviously got it wrong (approaching a little bit underestimating and with aggression, McLaren responsible too) and the stupid token system and generally "engine frozen" regulations locked them in their "mistake", so all the progress they done to improve is great. And think, Honda has ONLY 2 cars giving them data (while every other manufacturer has 4+). In the same time, McLaren chassis is almost 1 year behind too in development! In 2015 the Honda's issues meant that the car had TINY track time so made the development for both the PU and Chassis a pain in the a$$. (don't forget that now Prodromou can get the "tools" to unfold) And now they have a very good chassis and they get points and challenge for Q3 . And apart from that, Honda is still the worst engine on the grid (but hopefully that will change) and they just can't exploit the chassis they got fully (because of the engine). Renault is definitely a better PU and will get even better. I hope Honda achieves to bring good improvements this year too but the game for 2017 is definitely on (big regulation changes and engine development unfrozen) and this year is gonna be important for them so they can learn the max they can.
I think that what I told is not far off of reality.

[ALO_Power]

Also about Alonso, he had a clutch problem from Saturday afternoon that they didn't resolve and that cost him the bad start (he told in post race interview). And after that, game is lost. We all know that in Circuit of Barcelona normally you finish in the position you are after turn 1. (Alonso mentioned this before the race too). Of course tho you can pass if your car is 1+ seconds faster than the other. But Alonso was in the same car as Button (obviously ) so even if he can be 0,5 sec faster it's not enough to pass. Let alone that McLaren told him not to pass. Anyway, bad luck it is. I believe they could get a much better result than P9 with that opportunity and with better luck.

[CjC]

What's with the chatter about Fernando leaving for Mercedes and Rosberg to Ferrari?

Frees a spot for Vandoorne

[mclaren111]

Vandoorne must race next year !!

Otherwise we might loose him to another team, and he needs the experience for 2018 title challenge

[Sayeman]

it would be sad to see Ferdi go but i want him to win another championship before he bows out.
Anyone has any top speed data from the testing? how the new Renault PU compares to the old one they used in the race?

[ALO_Power]

What's with the chatter about Fernando leaving for Mercedes and Rosberg to Ferrari?

I haven't heard about this and to be honest I'd like to see Fer in a championship contender team. However, why Rosberg to leave Mercedes? He is on rails to his 1st World Championship, why would he like to go to a 2nd team. Generally, Mercedes is the top team now and both its drivers would like to stay haha. However, 2017 is a year when nobody knows what's gonna happen so, McLaren may be up there too in the end, who knows. Anyway, sorry for off topic .

[GoranF1]

Rosberg's new contract pumping game of trones is what it is......

[Vasconia]

Come on guys with all that pessimism !

. I hope Honda achieves to bring good improvements this year too but the game for 2017 is definitely on (big regulation changes and engine development unfrozen) and this year is gonna be important for them so they can learn the max they can.
I think that what I told is not far off of reality.

Hope and reality, until we see a clear improvement its better to be pessimistic( I should say informed realism) because the path is long and other teams are improving more(Renault, for example).

It not about being pessimistic, its about erasing all the "hope" words from the equation and see what the reality is. For instance, Honda has delayed the introduction of the new until maybe... Austria? who knows...

[Sayeman]

with all the extra downforce in 2017 Redbull might emerge as the dominant team again.

[Andres125sx]

Come on guys with all that pessimism !

. I hope Honda achieves to bring good improvements this year too but the game for 2017 is definitely on (big regulation changes and engine development unfrozen) and this year is gonna be important for them so they can learn the max they can.
I think that what I told is not far off of reality.

Hope and reality, until we see a clear improvement its better to be pessimistic( I should say informed realism) because the path is long and other teams are improving more(Renault, for example).

I don´t think we can say Renault is improving more. That´s like saying difference between Honda and Renault is bigger now that it was past season. It obviously is not.

We can discuss what PU is better at this point, but Honda progress has been much better than Renault as differences between Mclaren and Renault powered teams show

Actually I think Honda PU has improved more than any other manufacturer. Because in 2015 it was embarrasingly slow and unreliable so their starting point was the lowest, that´s true, but we know that for more than one complete year, so now we can´t ignore it and say Renault has improved more than Honda, because they´ve not. If Renault would have improved as much as Honda, RBR would be challenging for victories constantly, even with Mercedes on track



Honda is doing a good job since the end of 2015, but we can´t expect a jump from a PU wich is 30kmh down on topspeed and also is the most unreliable, to a title contender in just one winter. Let alone if there´s a token system restricting development of manufacturers. They´re doing great, but first problem to solve was reliability, not perfomance. They solved it as we can see with Mercedes and Ferrari PUs both suffering from reliability more than Honda in 2016. But that was only mkI PU, next step is improving perfomance with mkII PU so we´ll see in Canada (if they finally use it there) how are they doing perfomance wise

I sincerely think they´re following a correct schedule, and targets are being achieved more or less. Everybody would want to win some race this season, but that´s a naive dream when you think about what was their perfomance past season.

2017 will be very different, period