Starting our series of features for the new season by considering why the sleeping giants of Formula 1 need to deliver proof that their switch to Honda was the right move sooner rather than later
Tuesday 8 March 2016 11:56, UK
McLaren are the sleeping giants of F1 who endured a nightmare in 2015.
A superpower boasting eight Constructors' Championship, twelve driver titles, 182 F1 victories and 155 pole positions, McLaren were reduced to rank backmarkers last year. Fernando Alonso, lured back by the allure of McLaren's reunion with Honda, described the team's performance midway through the Japanese GP as "embarrassing". But it was worse than that. It was an abject humiliation.
In 2016 the only way is up. But how far up? "Podiums have to be the aim," Jenson Button predicted in October. But by their own mantra, McLaren are a team "which exists to win" - and nobody is predicting victories for McLaren in 2016.
Reputationally - and perhaps even financially - they cannot afford another 2015. Light must be glimpsed at the end of the tunnel. After finishing second in the 2011 Constructors' Championship, McLaren were third in 2012, fifth in 2013 and 2014 before slumping to a new nadir with ninth out of ten last season. If McLaren are to keep their big-team status, and if faith in their partnership with Honda is to be maintained and restored, that spiral of decline must be reversed.
Fernando and Jenson won't wait forever for proof that switching to Honda was the right more - or that Honda will deliver. Equally dependent on past glories and the promise that the future is bright, McLaren need to become a team of the present again.
From bad to good?
Alonso and Button, possibly by design as much as conviction, have already ramped up the pressure on their team by predicting massive gains in 2016. "McLaren will be one of the top cars next year, that is 100 per cent," a defiant Alonso told Sky F1 in October. For his part, Button says he only agreed to stay on after being given an enticing preview of McLaren's plans: "I needed to know that there were big changes coming for next year."
The onus is firmly on Honda to right the wrongs of 2015 when their power unit was both underpowered and unreliable. "Honda are aware of the enormity of the task they face," said Dennis at Christmas. And there can be no excuses if Honda fail to deliver.
"32 tokens are allowed in 2016. A compressor change requires three and a combustion chamber change three, so there's still scope to effectively completely re-design the engine. If you've badly messed up at this stage, you can still easily put it right," explains Sky F1 analyst Mark Hughes.
The evidence so far from winter testing is mixed. The Honda engine was reliable. "The step forward in reliability at least is huge," said Alonso. But the MP4-31 still lagged 20kmh or so through the speed traps, relegating the car to only around seventh or eighth in the pecking order.
Two sides to any partnership
Privately, McLaren insiders have also admitted they could - and should - have done better in 2015. After qualifying 2.6 seconds behind Mercedes for the Italian GP, Alonso said: "On a circuit of six corners, we lose two or three tenths in those corners. The rest we need to find on the straights." While the remark was interpreted as a public rebuke of Honda, the analysis also confirmed that the McLaren was significantly inferior to the Mercedes aerodynamically.
Moreover, the pressure is on McLaren to justify fixing their future to the Honda mast.
"No grand prix team is going to win a World Championship in the future unless it is the dominant recipient of an engine manufacturer's efforts," declared Dennis peremptorily as he justified swapping Mercedes power for Honda two years ago. That conviction became an article of faith in 2015 when McLaren only bettered Manor - who didn't even trouble the scorers - in the Constructors' Championship. "Is it painful? Of course it is," said Dennis in Abu Dhabi.
And there's the quandary. If the MP4-31 was powered by by a Mercedes or Ferrari engine in 2016 then it would likely be third in the pecking order. But it wouldn't win - the occasional race maybe, but certainly not a championship. The Honda-powered MP4-31 won't be third in 2016, it almost certainly won't win races and it certainly won't challenge for the championship. But, in the long term, the partnership just might.
"We have to go through this pain to get to where we want to," says Dennis. But the wait has already been long and patience has already worn thin. McLaren start 2016 as a team in urgent need of soothing pain relief.
The first race of the 2016 F1 season, the Australian GP, is exclusively live on Sky F1. The race in Melbourne starts at 5am on Sunday March 20.
