McLaren
and Honda announced back in May 2013 that they would reignite their evocative
collaboration in time for this season. Crucially, the Woking-based team would
have exclusive use of the engine in 2015 - an excellent marketing move and,
hopefully, a winning move. After all, in what has become an engine-formula, if
no-one else has your engine and it’s the best one, who’s gonna stop you?
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| A rare on-track sighting of a McLaren this winter Source: McLaren |
Honda
had almost two years to fully focus and develop their ‘V6-era’ power unit. They
had the benefit of seeing what Mercedes did to get that crucial edge over
Ferrari and Renault. I’m not saying that Honda should have been considered
nailed-on 2015 title favourites but race wins? Definitely. Of course, that
could still happen. Winter testing is precisely just for that - testing - and
you only have to look at how Red Bull overcame their woes 12 months ago to send
Daniel Ricciardo to the top of the podium on three occasions last season to
demonstrate that testing times are meaningless - indeed, why anyone except
Autosport live tweets lap times from testing is beyond me.
What
isn’t meaningless is the data gained from Jerez and Barcelona (and Sakhir last
year). Honda have gained a pitiful amount of mileage. Renault, for all their
various problems last winter (Red Bull were late in their development stage,
Toro Rosso had just switched from Ferrari and both Lotus and Caterham struggled
with finance and development) had four teams to help gain and share
data.
Honda
2015? Nothing of the sort.
Installation
teething problems were always likely to be a problem for McLaren but you only
have to see the following stat to understand that exclusivity may not have been
the best idea…
Total
distance run by power unit in the first Barcelona test:
1.
Mercedes 1,518 laps - 7,066km
2.
Renault 829 laps - 3,858km
3.
Ferrari 663 laps - 3,086km
4.
Honda 124 laps - 577km
*source:
formula1.com
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| JB finally logged significant mileage on Day 10 (of 12) of winter testing Source: McLaren |
As
a Formula 1 fan, it’s easy to say that McLaren should have bought out, or at
least helped to a greater degree, Marussia/Manor. The fact is, as a mere fan,
we simply don’t know what goes on behind the closed doors within the F1
paddock. More help is given between teams than we realise but there is still
the fundamental ‘survival of the fittest’ attitude that plagues the paddock.
McLaren
are a team that have always had an impeccable young driver programme: from the
days of Nick Heidfeld in F3000, through to nurturing Lewis Hamilton, and to the
current crop of Kevin Magnussen, Stoffel Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries. It seems
to make perfect sense for McLaren to operate Marussia and use it a junior team
for Magnussen and Vandoorne. They only need to look at the runaway success of
Minardi becoming Toro Rosso for proof. Honda would have a second team (again)
and there would at least be the chance that, even when McLaren were stricken
with mechanical woes, more data could be gained in testing.
Such
a collaboration would have helped ease the doom and gloom that has surrounded
Marussia for the last few months, and we continue to pray for the recovery of
both Jules Bianchi and Michael Schumacher.
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| Kevin Magnussen could have found a home at Manor/Marussia... Source: McLaren |
Clearly, McLaren haven’t even had the
opportunity to run their car at full power in these pre-season tests, so there
is definitely reason for optimism. And Honda will be desperate for a Red Bull
2014-style recovery to help heal the wounds of having sold off their former
works team… which has since gone on to win the 2009 and 2014 titles.
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| Fernando Alonso has had an eventful return to McLaren Source: McLaren |
