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Following a recent interview, Fernando Alonso has revealed that he believes that McLaren would be a frontrunning team if they were not powered by Honda.
The statement followed qualifying for this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, where the Spaniard qualified in 12th place despite having a significant deficit in power through the Honda engine in the back of his McLaren car.
In the interview, Alonso stated that if the McLaren did not lose time on the straights that the team “would be very competitive”, with McLaren losing on average 1.3 seconds per lap due to Honda according to German media by using GPS to calculate the lost time. If this gap is true, Alonso’s Q2 time would easily have put him in the top ten shootout for pole position.
Alonso’s beliefs are also echoed inside the McLaren camp, with an unnamed source inside the team declaring that “With a top engine, we could have done Bottas' time".
Going into the Canadian Grand Prix, it was reported that Honda were bringing an engine update for the race, however, it has since been confirmed that this update has been delayed and should appear on the car for the eighth race of the 2017 Season in Baku although this is something that Yusuke Hasegawa “cannot promise”.
If Honda does not improve soon, there is speculation that McLaren may switch engine supplies for 2018, reportedly being in talks with Mercedes, Renault, and Ferrari, with Zak Brown revealing that McLaren “value all our options” and the “whole situation is very complex”.
McLaren switched to Honda power at the start of 2015 after previously using Mercedes engines. In this time, the team have seen little success, with their highest finish so far being fifth place at several races since the start of the relationship.
Chris Soulsby
Grand Prix of Belgium
G. Zhou
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Replies (5)
Login to replyf1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
Duhh
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Most likely, but would they be winning? Im not so sure. Of course, they are hardly winning now either. I think a split is coming. I think Honda could (and I emphasize the could heavily ) produce a competitive engine for the next season, since they wont need another revamp of the engine, but even if they were to produce one I think its too late to save their partnership with McLaren, a works partnership at that. Assuming McLaren can get a decent PU elsewhere, of course.
RacetoWin
Posts: 95
Alonso is dreaming!!!
look at the redbull, they know their engine is underpowered so the designed their car to be low drag and its very aero clean, this is how a good team works.
then look at mclaren, the car has tons of drag, from the front wing to the overlooped rear wing the car is very areo dirty and has lots of drag, they should've done their car to be low drag like the redbull.
honda needs to start point fingers back at mclaren and also point out that its development has been slow due to only running 2 engines, mclaren wouldnt allow other teams to be supplied and their own arrogance has cost them.
honda would be better off running their own team and supply any team they want.
its unfair for honda to pay for mclarens troubles.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I agree to a certain extent. Finger pointing isnt exactly a behaviour I think it healthy for F1, and I think Honda has done well in not finger pointing. If we look at the last season, McLaren would've been more competitive had they produced a better car, by Japan it was very evident that the car wasnt as good as McLaren claimed, so Honda wasnt at fault that season. However, as much as my inner Honda fanboy scream, I cannot really defend them this season. They have built a flawed package, whereas McLaren has built a good chassis, likely not comparable to Mercedes' or Ferrari's cars, they'd be higher up if that were the case, but its good. We saw this in Spain and Monaco: neither of the tracks rely much on power, yet McLaren set good lap times. I will say that I like that Honda is trying, they've provided smaller updates to their package to almost every race, but trying isnt the same as succeeding. I dont think McLaren is completely innocent, it takes two for a tango, but Honda hasnt met expectations.
You are correct when you say McLaren's unwillingness to let Honda supply another team has cost them, and I dont think the argument that it would thin out the attention McLaren recieve from Honda hold up well. McLaren is the works team, and Honda has always favoured their works teams. When Honda supplied Jordan and BAR, Mugen were managing the Honda engines supplied to Jordan, while BAR got Honda's full attention. And that was when Jordan performed better than BAR.
I do agree that Honda should probably have their own works team, they want to take it slow, and a works team would let them work in their own tempo, yet I doubt they will make one. Its expensive, and I think they want to focus on the engines while another entity focus on the chassis. And contracting e.g Dallara to make their chassis isnt a good solution, we can see that Haas' Dallara chassis isnt ideal, even when some parts come from Ferrari. I doubt Sauber will ever become a true works Honda team, Honda want a big name, and Sauber isnt competitive enough.
Squirrel10
Posts: 36
The McLaren is a sound car and Alonso is probably right, with a better engine he could be up there, certainly getting points. Although I feel for Honda, I hope the split comes sooner than later. It's not good for a driver of his calibre floundering around at the back