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Honda has confirmed that it was aiming to introduce its latest "Spec 4" power unit update at this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, but has admitted that it failed to meet its original schedule. In an attempt to please McLaren and avoid a potentially awkward divorce, Honda is accelerating its development to show that it is able to catch up to its nearby rivals on the grid.
Earlier this year, Honda implemented its "Spec 3" update at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and was aiming to launch its next major upgrade in Belgium this weekend, however, Yusuke Hasegawa confirmed that this failed, leaving McLaren with only a partially updated power unit.
"We had planned to introduce 'Spec 4' here but we failed, we didn't match our schedule," said Hasegawa. "We're halfway through our upgrade so we called it 3.5 and 3.6." Despite this, Hasegawa remained confident that McLaren should see a boost in performance with the partial upgrade, although it would be difficult to see by how much due to it being difficult to compare different spec power units at different circuits.
"It's difficult to compare the previous engine to this engine because it's a different circuit," he explained. "From the data point of view, we see a good update of the performance here."
Chris Soulsby
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
159 members have this team as their favourite
Replies (6)
Login to replyHarryw
Posts: 107
As a McLaren fan I just want the team to be in control of results. Not Honda. Why doesn't McLaren produce its own engine now it has a road car?
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Easy, it lacks the resources to. As BARRON says, McLaren doesnt produce or design most of their engines. They contribute to the design, yes, but the rest is done by a contractor, e.g Ricardo. The engine inside the P1, MP4-12C and so on is in fact a Nissan design, bought by McLaren and finalized by Ricardo.
In short: McLaren lack the resources and experience to build their own PUs, and are unwilling to spend the huge sums of money and time it'd take to even become semicompetent in the area. With their works-partnership with Honda, they've recieved engines they havent needed to produce themselves, meaning they could lay more resources on designing their gearboxes, chassis and so on, while also getting input on what path Honda should take the engine (e.g McLaren were the one to insist the engine in 2015 should be as small as possible). Dont think they mind the partnership itself, they just need far better results from it.
Barron
Posts: 625
McLaren doesn't build its own road car engine, that's done by Ricardo. McLaren actually doesn't make anything much, "assembler" would be more accurate, rather like Rolls Royce in the UK.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Well, sort of. McLaren do however at the very least design most of the rest of the car, including chassis and gearboxes.
Harryw
Posts: 107
Insightful responses. Thanks. Shame these engine partners aren't delivering. Maybe simplifying engines would make them think about their own engine
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
I think most of them do think about their engines, its bad advertisement to have a negative presence in motorsport, even if its in F1, the pinnacle of motorsport. The problem has pretty much been one that has always been present: one supplier does something extraordinarily well, and the others have a hard time catching up once the ball is rolling. I just think the problem has been bigger now compared to how it usually is. Said problem has in part been emphasized by the complexity of the current PUs, token things (huhu) as the token system, which effectively prevented any major midseason development, and the limited amount of parts allowed for each driver.