Since it was announced in May 2013 that the once mighty McLaren-Honda partnership would be rekindled for the 2015 season, many fans around the world thought that with this once dominating partnership would help bring McLaren back to winning ways.
Rumours kept circulating that the new Honda V6 Hybrid they would be bringing to the Woking squad was underpowered, thirsty on fuel and unreliable, on the other hand Ron Dennis claimed to Martin Brundle in a Sky interview it was a jewel and a work of art.
After the 2014 finale in Abu Dhabi, there was a young driver test for two days. McLaren were ready to start testing their Honda partnership with Oliver Turvey and Stoffel Vandoorne in the car to get some basic information on the car. Only 5 laps were achieved over both days, not the best of starts it seemed but their was optimism still with the off season available to put things right.
Through winter testing the team only managed 1,087 miles in the twelve days they had available to them while Mercedes clocked up over 11,000 miles. It was clear that Honda’s unique package was not ready and needed a lot of work to just keep running let alone to be competitive on circuit.
Is McLaren’s Criticism Valid?
Many years ago before winter testing was restricted teams could test a lot more frequently and therefore work through the issues on the cars and engines before the season had even started and help reliability.
Throughout winter testing the car looked good, but the Honda power unit was certainly questionable. Running at lowest possible capacity in Australia meant a back row start and poor Kevin Magnussen stepping in for the recovering Fernando Alonso didn’t even make the start after his engine blew on the lap to the grid. Jenson Button did finish the race 11th albeit there were quite a few retirements.
In Australia the car was nearly three seconds off the front running pace and was running at the back only just keeping up with the Force Indias. Since then they may not have moved up through the field, but the car has improved on pace and Honda have said they are turning up the engine slowly race by race.
The once revered and beloved partnership has faced much ridicule but is it deserved given the circumstances? Both Fernando and Jenson are sticking by it as a future Mercedes beater in the not too distant future, it will take a gargantuan effort to bring them to front of the pack in such short time, but given the resources and know-how at McLaren and with Honda’s dedication to this project. It will be a long road to take in such a short time, but if anyone can do it, McLaren can.
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