Why the Singapore Grand Prix Will Make or Break McLaren's Season
At next weekend's Singapore Grand Prix, it is all supposed to come good for McLaren-Honda. For months, the team has been targeting the street race on a small island at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula as their coming out party—or at least as the race where their cars look like they are in the same formula as everyone else's.
And there is good reason for optimism at the Woking-based team: Their two best results this year (fifth and eighth place) came at Monaco and Hungary, the two circuits most like Singapore's Marina Bay.
If McLaren do not challenge for serious points at Formula One's original night race, though, look out. Despite racing director Eric Boullier's assertion, per ESPN F1's Nate Saunders, that the team's relationship with Honda will not degenerate like Red Bull and Renault's has, the Italian Grand Prix grilling of Honda motorsport chief Yasuhisa Arai might end up looking like a friendly question-and-answer session.
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The team has built the Singapore race up into something more than it is; more than just another one of the 19 races on the calendar this year. Now, it is the most important race of McLaren's season, at least in terms of public perception.
After the British Grand Prix in early July, Jenson Button told ESPN F1's Laurence Edmondson, "I think Singapore is going to be the race that is going to be the standout race that we need to give it large and come out with a result. We are very good with slow speed corners, which has been a weakness of McLaren in the past. ... So Singapore has to be the race where we gear up and hopefully get the best result."
In Italy, referring to Singapore, Button said: "In two weeks' time, we could go to a race and be fighting for fifth and sixth place," according to the BBC's Andrew Benson (read the rest of Benson's article for an excellent description of what is wrong with Honda's power unit).
And Button's team-mate Fernando Alonso has spoken optimistically about Singapore, as well. In Hungary, per Sky Sports' James Galloway, Alonso said: "Hopefully the second half or the season—or let’s say after Monza because Spa and Monza will be quite hard for us and our characteristics—let’s say from Singapore onwards we can see something clear in terms of results."
Understandably, McLaren fans will be getting excited with all of this positive talk. After all, they have now been starved of any kind of success for nearly three years—since Lewis Hamilton surprisingly moved to Mercedes at the end of the 2012 season.
Since then, McLaren have scored just two podium finishes, both at the 2014 Australian Grand Prix (and one of them only because Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified, promoting Button to third).
The problems on the track have exacerbated McLaren's struggle to find a new title sponsor, which became a running joke last year, before the team seemingly gave up. Now, the cars and driver coveralls are mostly blank.
McLaren are one of the most successful teams in F1 history—only Ferrari have more wins—but no one wants to pay big money to have their company name plastered on a car struggling to finish races.
Two cars in the points in Singapore, perhaps even pushing the top five, would reassure everyone that the team is making progress. And that result is certainly possible. As in Hungary, there should be some chaos inside the Singapore Armco barriers and as long as Button and Alonso can steer clear of it, they will have a chance for a decent finish.
But more engine failures or just a general lack of pace would not only be disheartening for the drivers and fans, it could be disastrous for Honda. In Italy, the Daily Mail's Jonathan McEvoy wrote that McLaren have asked the Japanese company to replace Arai.
If Honda has to start offing executives not even one year into their renewed McLaren partnership, it doesn't exactly bode well for the future, does it?
After a disappointing race at Monza, Boullier tried to temper the optimism for Singapore, saying, per a team press release: "We aren’t predicting great things for the next race, Singapore, but we’re hoping that that street circuit’s characteristics will be slightly kinder to our car than Spa-Francorchamps and Monza have been."
It is too late for that, though. Rightly or wrongly, Singapore will provide a verdict on McLaren's entire season. If the team is not comfortable with that, they shouldn't have spent the last few months talking about how competitive they would be around Marina Bay.
At the end of August, Button referred to the Singapore race as, "our A-game if you like," according to ESPN F1's Nate Saunders.
Unfortunately, at this point, even McLaren's A-game may not be enough to beat Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams or even many of the midfield teams.
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