Mike Gascoyne and Craig Scarborough join Natalie Pinkham for F1 Report: Canadian GP review show
Thursday 15 June 2017 10:29, UK
The McLaren hierarchy have already taken the decision to split with Honda at the end of the season, according to F1 Report guest Mike Gascoyne.
The former Toyota technical boss believes the marked change in McLaren's language about their engines partners - with boss Zak Brown describing Honda as "lost" and team chief Eric Boullier damning their performance in Canada as "completely unacceptable" - is a signal that McLaren have already started to draw up the divorce papers.
"The rhetoric has been quite critical for the last couple of races and it just sounds like a decision has been made and they are just fencing around about how to make it public," said Gascoyne on the F1 Report: Canada review show.
"There has been a big shift and Honda, if anything, are getting worse."
According to reports, McLaren held talks with Mercedes at the Canadian GP to discuss terms for obtaining an engine supply, three years after splitting with the Silver Arrows to reunite with Honda.
And technical analyst Craig Scarborough believes a return to Mercedes power is a no-brainer for the fallen superpowers as they consider their options for 2018.
"Mercedes are the obvious choice," he said.
"Arguably, it's the best engine, they are very good with their customers and politically it would fit in very nicely. The other options? I can't see McLaren-Ferrari and a Renault supply is not a direction you'd want to go. So it has to be Mercedes or they will just have to tough it out with Honda.
"The Honda engine to Mercedes' is probably a smaller jump than it would be from the Honda to the Ferrari or Renault, which have very different engine layouts internally."
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