The demise of Mclaren in F1

[CarMadMike]

Hey :hello:

 

I figured that the rather odd downfall of Mclaren in F1 deserved its own thread as it's something that will most likely continue to drag on until either they withdraw or they regain their footing at (or near) the top of the table.

 

 

The latest development in this saga being that although Alonso is contracted to race next year, we might not actually be seeing him....

 

Fernando Alonso could take a sabbatical from Formula 1 next year, McLaren boss Ron Dennis says.

There have been suggestions that if the Honda remains uncompetitive in 2016, Alonso could take a year out and come back to fulfil the final two years of his contract in 2017 and 2018.

 

A sabbatical? Jesus christ. I'm unsure how comfortable I'd be if I were an investor in Mclaren Motorsport right now.

[Camel]

#PROGRESS!

 

Sad to see one of the greats pootling around(or not) at the bottom of the grid. It'd be great if they could get the car/engine sorted out for next year but I'm not holding my breath. Could take a fair few years for them to get back to the top again.

[Eudemon]

Why are they having this much trouble though? Is it that their top people have left to go elsewhere or something else entirely. Is the car actually very good and it is the engine holding it back? It's a weird one as if there's one thing McLaren can do, it is put together a damn good car as can be seen from their past and current road cars.

[Camel]

When they make road cars, their F1 cars tend to not be very good.

 

Honda are also years behind the other engines in the time they've spent working on them and they tried to do a Mercedes and make an innovative engine but it's not gone too well for them. The chassis isn't all that bad as could be seen on the slower tracks where they could race with the midfield cars even when they were still at a major power disadvantage.

[CarMadMike]

Interesting to read about McLaren poaching the head of VW motorsport.

[ViralBunny]

I expected even less from McLaren for the 2015 season since Honda were giving the rest of the field the advantage of having figured out how to make those horrible hybrid engines work. The rule changes regarding testing and development makes it pretty hard to do something about your overall package if you don't have a car with the potential for podiums/points going into round 1. Fingers crossed for more competition (and overtaking) 2016!

[CarMadMike]

Yeah fingers crossed they're still not playing catch-up too much this season, I don't think 'improvement/progress' is enough, they need to be scoring a decent amount of points.