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Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 27 Jul 2017, 23:51
by ZakB
Joseki wrote: ↑27 Jul 2017, 22:38
It's always too late and not too much. They needed more people and more money than Mercedes from day 1 with the amount of work they had to do to catch up.
This project was based on a colossal mix of ignorance of the level required to compete in F1 and arrogance to hire inexperienced staff from other divisions.
I really hope that spec 4 is a game changer because I suspect the board isn't really happy to have the Honda brand associated with constant failure and humiliation in Europe.
Well at least it shows that they understand that they need more manpower and better facilities.

Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 28 Jul 2017, 00:11
by Redragon
Joseki wrote: ↑27 Jul 2017, 22:38
It's always too late and not too much. They needed more people and more money than Mercedes from day 1 with the amount of work they had to do to catch up.
This project was based on a colossal mix of ignorance of the level required to compete in F1 and arrogance to hire inexperienced staff from other divisions.
I really hope that spec 4 is a game changer because I suspect the board isn't really happy to have the Honda brand associated with constant failure and humiliation in Europe.
I am sorry but you don't start a business spending and investing I big amounts of staff and resources if you don't know the right path, it is bound to be a failure or suicide from the beginning. All businesses start small and invest along as things are needed on the way, step by step. That's why the project is a 10 years plan. The mistake they did was to start too cocky promising wins on year 1 when everybody knew was impossible.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 28 Jul 2017, 01:23
by godlameroso
Mercedes factory team budget was tiny when it took over Brawn GP, it wasn't until 2012 that they started investing more and more.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 28 Jul 2017, 13:45
by taperoo2k
godlameroso wrote: ↑28 Jul 2017, 01:23
Mercedes factory team budget was tiny when it took over Brawn GP, it wasn't until 2012 that they started investing more and more.
That's probably the point when they decided that they were on the correct path for the hybrid era more or less, thus the coffers opened up. Honda might finally be on the right path, but in hindsight they might have been able to avoid a lot of the woes had they hired experienced Engineers from other manufacturers. But that doesn't appear to be the Honda way, learn from the mistakes until you hit the nail on the head so to speak then transfer the knowledge gained to other parts of Honda. Hopefully all the pain will have been worth it for Honda in the end.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 28 Jul 2017, 18:14
by Mattchu
Well I for one am glad that the Honda engine is now started to be a lot more of a reliable unit. I`d imagine now they have [for a while] a decent platform to work with they have been able to do a great deal of tweaking with the mapping, etc.
With the complexity of these systems i`d imagine quite a lot can be gained just from the experience of actually running which as we know Honda hasn`t done enough of as of late!
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 28 Jul 2017, 19:44
by 63l8qrrfy6
Mattchu wrote: ↑28 Jul 2017, 18:14
Well I for one am glad that the Honda engine is now started to be a lot more of a reliable unit. I`d imagine now they have [for a while] a decent platform to work with they have been able to do a great deal of tweaking with the mapping, etc.
With the complexity of these systems i`d imagine quite a lot can be gained just from the experience of actually running which as we know Honda hasn`t done enough of as of late!
More reliable? It is probably at its worst at the moment.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 28 Jul 2017, 20:30
by fellowhoodlums
It does seem the PU is more reliable. The MGU-H on the other hand..........no so much.
Expect them to swap it out overnight with the other.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 28 Jul 2017, 20:50
by godlameroso
According to the team it was an old power unit nearing the end of it's life so not a terrible loss. By now the mechanics have gotten pretty good at swapping the power units, so while it still sucks for them, it's not a huge loss.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 28 Jul 2017, 21:40
by Soichiro
godlameroso wrote: ↑28 Jul 2017, 20:50
According to the team it was an old power unit nearing the end of it's life so not a terrible loss. By now the mechanics have gotten pretty good at swapping the power units, so while it still sucks for them, it's not a huge loss.
Being a Friday unit, they would have to swap it anyway.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 29 Jul 2017, 00:27
by adrianjordan
godlameroso wrote: ↑28 Jul 2017, 20:50
According to the team it was an old power unit nearing the end of it's life so not a terrible loss. By now the mechanics have gotten pretty good at swapping the power units, so while it still sucks for them, it's not a huge loss.
We have a league table fot fastest pit stops....maybe Mclaren Honda should be pushing for one for PU changes

Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 29 Jul 2017, 02:39
by drunkf1fan
Redragon wrote: ↑28 Jul 2017, 00:11
I am sorry but you don't start a business spending and investing I big amounts of staff and resources if you don't know the right path, it is bound to be a failure or suicide from the beginning. All businesses start small and invest along as things are needed on the way, step by step. That's why the project is a 10 years plan. The mistake they did was to start too cocky promising wins on year 1 when everybody knew was impossible.
I'd say that a LOT of people believed Honda would be good in the first year. Everywhere i looked and read the sentiment was that Honda were great, had pedigree and would do great. Sky's thing was hyping it up all 2013 and a hell of a lot of fans believed even after preseason testing that Honda would be competitive by the summer. Very few people were calling it a disaster in the making.
Also where Merc had basically 4 seasons to a new regulation period they planned to hit hard so sensibly built up year by year, Honda were rushing in with only 18 months development, they didn't have the option to build up a program slowly at all, they had to hit it full strength straight away. They needed people working on different design options asap to have any chance of finding the right thing. If they wanted a slow build up(which is absolutely the optimum way to do it) they absolutely had to, I mean had to say no to Mclaren's deal and say they want 2.5-3.5 years of development, 18 months was absolutely crazy and once they agreed to that they gave up any dream of building up slowly and sensibly. 18 months and they wanted to catch up to Merc who would be at 4.5 years or so of big budget development by the time they entered.
Even then throwing money isn't the best solution in many circumstances with only 18 months of development time it was the only outside chance they had of hitting 2015 running.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 29 Jul 2017, 08:05
by Oonnnn
So, will VAN get a penalty?
Also, for the fact that McLaren knew the MGU-H was near its end-of-milage, why didn't they change it before this GP?
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 29 Jul 2017, 10:20
by fellowhoodlums
Alo has another in his allocation already used so can switch to it. That's why he took the penalties in Silverstone so he had two of everything for Hungary.
Van, not sure
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 29 Jul 2017, 11:21
by diffuser
Oonnnn wrote: ↑29 Jul 2017, 08:05
So, will VAN get a penalty?
Also, for the fact that McLaren knew the MGU-H was near its end-of-milage, why didn't they change it before this GP?
So the FP unit used on Friday wasn't the one they were planning on using for qualli and the race.
Re: Honda Power Unit
Posted: 29 Jul 2017, 12:10
by GoranF1
Apparently Hasegawa told some Spanish jurnalist that full spec 3 can be expected in SPA.