Watching Jensons onboard just then was pitiful. It's so obviously massively down on power. DC: "that's not in slow motion it's just how fast the Mclaren goes"
Andrew Benson @andrewbensonf1 1m1 minute ago FIA confirms record penalty of a combined total of 105 grid positions for @alo_oficial & @JensonButton. Oh, and that big Honda upgrade? Meh
Comparing McLaren to the other happy constructor/PU pairing (Red Bull) in quali. Fastest sector times, McLaren are: S1: 2.00% slower S2: 2.23% slower S3: 2.19% slower
Where do they go from here (apart from somewhere....very slowly)? Seriously, they are 4-5 seconds off pole... with an "upgrade" Remember where they were in Australia with pretty much the ERS turned off? Ok, some of that is circuit specific because Spa is more power related and longer, but still....... This is a team that were aiming for wins nearer the end of the season and they are back to fighting with the Manors and a second, yes, 1 full second off the next nearest car on the tail of the midfield. Has to be sackings.
Just pitiful really. The embarassment is almost deserved but then you see the way Button and Alonso have conducted themselves and you have to feel a little for them. Honda have just massively, massively misread F1 in 2015. How Arai can come out and say that their engine 'was better than Renault' in Hungary shows what a deluded twat this guy is. Get some non-Japanese nouse in there, roll some heads, and get some feet back on the floor. Utterly astonishing. They must not even know the cause of their low performance to STILL be failing like this. Either that or clinging on to a fundamental design problem.
Their ers is rubbish and their "axial flow compressor" turbo is just a massively flawed idea IMO. In theory, it's good.... Lots of little fans will speed up much faster than one big one and you avoid lag at the expense of utimate power. Remind me what part of the ERS system does again? specifically the part that spins the turbo up almost totally avoid lag? They are trading off power they don't need to trade off for the sake of driveability that should have been handled by their recovery systems anyway.
I still stand by my view that regardless of the power unit (which is obviously **** and had to carry a fuel tanker round it's the uneconomical) the chassis isn't good enough - or dare I say it, bad? But if it was simply too much downforce, McLaren would at least look competitive through the middle sector. They didn't, which once again points back to the power unit. Honda's insistence of not hiring any external staff to assist the project is coming under increased scrutiny and may further delay any improvements. "You need to fast track, you need to get the knowledge in right away," said Sky F1's Martin Brundle. "Imagine if Ferrari said 'we only hire Italians' - then you wouldn't have had Michael Schumacher, Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne and look how that worked out. It is a cosmopolitan, international business and you just have to get the best in the world to make your car, your engine, whatever it is perform as quickly as possible as fast as possible." With the next race at Monza also engine dependent, it could be a long few weeks for McLaren.
In a weird way Spa should be good for teams with less than ideal ERS. The ERS Megajoule limits are over a lap, and at Spa a lap is very long. This gives them more time to recover power and then limits the rate at which it can be deployed, assuming you want a bit of it throughout the lap. Yes it is a power circuit, but one which in many ways goes soft on the ERS side of the PU. Like Smithers has just said, they lost out most to Red Bull in sector 2, and it's not like Red Bull aren't having to compromise aero either.
I don't think their short nose has balanced the aero overall either. Ferrari haven't rushed to a short nose as of yet and they did mighty fine at twisty Malaysia and Hungary. Is this ultra skinny rear causing any issues do you think?
The skinny wing will make them slower in the middle sector, but should compensate a bit on the faster bits by creating less drag. Unfortunately it seems the Honda powertrain and McLaren car are both inadequate. No excuse for being 4s off the ultimate pole time. There is not one area where that car has looked convincing at any point this season. Even knowing they were going to be at the back of the grid, surely they would still try and get out of Q1 if they could, just for pride? Did they turn the engine down for fear of reliability again knowing both would be at the back? How long can Ron take this?
Today is about is poor as it gets. Yet Boullier said there was progress in his interview, and Arai still can't admit they have a turd of an engine.
They just need a better chassis, look what Hamilton could do with a obviously underpowered car The Saubers just drove away from them
Woeful. Nobody should have expected McLaren to go well at Spa this year but Honda's stance is not doing them any favours…
here's a bit of context as to how well McHRT are doing, at last years Belgian GP the Mercs were over 3 seconds faster than everyone else in Q1, it dropped to just under 2.5 in Q3.
