I think this is a good partnership for McLaren. Making their own engines is unfeasible, they could probably find the funds and resources to produce a decent engine, but would it help them shift more of their road cars? It almost certainly wouldn't in my opinion since the team are referred to as "McLaren" any way. Honda are not only proven as engine suppliers, but the tie up could be very lucrative. Japan have no team in F1 now so Honda's involvement would spark interest in McLaren in Japan. Potentially by 2014 JB could be retired, replacing him with Kobayashi in a Japanese powered car would be excellent PR overseas, and they could ironically sell more cars through having someone else build their engines.
JB retiring before 2014? Schumacher was Jenson's current age when he won his first title for Ferrari. Senna was Jenson's age when he won his third title, and barring fatal tragedy there's very little doubt as to whether would have won more. And while he has had better cars, I don't think Button has ever looked a better driver than this season. Plenty of life left in him.
Hakkinen was 33 when he retired, and as a driver would be more comparable to Jenson. Everyone's different, JB will be 34 in 2014 and has spoken of his desire to compete in Le Mans and DTM. If he's not competitive when the new regs come in I wouldn't be surprised to see him leave the sport.
Cheers. I spent years as a youngster modifying Lego Technic sets on long dark winter nights, inclduing sticking extra banks of cylinders onto the V4 test-car and adding an extra gear into the transmission. I reckon that baby was pumping out 400bhp by the time I had fitted the motors to each wheel Could never get a W formation to work otherwise I would have told Life what they were doing worng.
Meccano child myself, graduated to building up radio contolled aeroplanes and the contollers, very time consuming and so frustrating, my old man used to go mad, Ether and Castor oil fueled engines being run in, in the basement, all his tools all over the place, Mum thought it was funny, Spent weeks building balsa and paper planes only to get them smashed up within a few hours flying. My best mate Andy who went to the same Grammar School was cleverer than me, eventually went to Uni and became a doctor, he ****ed off to the USA and I've never heard from him since. I went to technical college studying electrical engineering, found out about girls and that was the end of my formal education. Have put to good use all that I learn't during my early life.
Ernie - 'found out about girls and that was the end of my formal education.' I'd have thought that was the start of education ?
