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McLaren is reportedly working hard to adapt its 2018 car to the very different Renault engine. When the British team began the 2018 project, it might have expected to stay with Honda power beyond this year.
Instead, after three years of struggling with its Japanese works partner, McLaren is moving from Honda to Renault. But Auto Motor und Sport reports that the Renault power unit has a "completely different architecture". McLaren designer Matt Morris confirms: "We had to redesign the clutch and the gearbox."
The cooling and radiator requirements are also completely different, with Morris admitting that McLaren will simply rely on Renault's recommendations for the first year. "Only with more experience does it make sense to develop something of our own," he said. (GMM)
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Replies (5)
Login to replyBarron
Posts: 625
Renaults ‘recommendations’ resulted in 4 engine failures in Mexico, the highest number of a single manufacturers engine product in a single race for a decade.
F1todayfan101
Posts: 120
This is hardly surprising....
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
That was expected. The problem for McLaren is: will it demand more resources compared to the other years, and will it affect how much power they can extract from that engine the first one or two year?
Barron
Posts: 625
It seems they have already had to redesign clutch & gearbox and revise cooling. However, it is a race winning engine in the right chassis, and they do have Newey’s ex right hand man, so the expectation is strong from the get go..
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
That much is clear, but did it cost them more time and resources, and are the lost resources and time significant for them? Newey's ex hand man is one person, and its not even Newey himself. You need more than that to build a good chassis. This year's McLaren chassis is no doubt good, but the other 2 years chassis were bad, and that with a midget PU. Next year, they will race with a bigger engine with a design they arent familiar with, and they do that against a long term Renault partner and a Renault works team. And from the looks of it, they go at it with a much smaller budget and with less time compared to it's rivals. Dont expect much from them next year.