Why McLaren-Honda Are the Team with Most to Worry About After 3rd F1 Test
Fernando Alonso spent last week resting at home following his crash in pre-season testing, but you wouldn't have begrudged his McLaren colleagues a lie-down after Formula One's winter schedule came to an end last Sunday.
McLaren's third and final four-day test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya produced the same results as the previous two, as occasional periods of promise were soon suppressed by feelings of despair and frustration.
While the teams whom McLaren would like to consider their closest rivals, Mercedes, Williams and Ferrari, were relentlessly pounding around the track, lighting up the timing screens—particularly in the case of the reigning world champions, whose pace shook the paddock to its core—the Woking-based outfit were often trapped in the garage, tending to their latest technical problem.
TOP NEWS
Watch: Seagull steals pizza at F1 Monaco
Kim Kardashian Arrives at F1 Monaco Race
New Mock with AD Trade 💡
For the third test in succession, McLaren completed the fewest laps of any team, with Jenson Button and reserve driver Kevin Magnussen racking up a combined total of 177 laps across the final Barcelona test.
To put that figure into perspective, Force India—who ran just two-and-a-half days of the third test, in which they debuted a brand-new car—managed to get 365 laps on the board, only 15 less than McLaren managed to complete across the entire 12 days of pre-season with the Honda-powered MP4-30, as per the official Formula One website.
Such a lack of running—Button's 101-lap total last Friday was the team's best single-day tally of a winter which saw Mercedes complete 157 on the opening day of the first test—has undoubtedly left McLaren the most unprepared team ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in less than a fortnight's time.
When the team's renewed technical partnership with the engine manufacturer was announced in mid-2013, the notion that McLaren-Honda—a name synonymous with one of the most dominant periods in F1 history—would kick off the new era as potential backmarkers was unthinkable.
But with racing director Eric Boullier recently telling Crash.net that McLaren will not be competitive until the European leg of the campaign begins at the Spanish Grand Prix in May—on the back of his admission to ESPN F1 at the second test that his outfit were 50 per cent "behind on our plan"—the team could be in for an incredibly humbling start to the year.
Although testing was nearly disastrous—two MGU-K seal failures in the space of three days in the second test, as confirmed by the team, was arguably the lowest point from a reliability perspective—the MP4-30, to all intents and purposes, is a very good racing car.
The tightly packaged, "size zero" chassis—as it was christened by McLaren CEO Ron Dennis according to Sky Sports' James Galloway—will be a strong aerodynamic asset, while Button told Galloway and Sky Sports' William Esler that the MP4-30 is a step forward in terms of "drivability" and "under braking."
Even Magnussen, whom the team confirmed as Alonso's replacement at Albert Park, could sense the car's promise despite spending just 39 laps behind the wheel at Barcelona, proving that McLaren's main and perhaps only issue is to get the thing running consistently.
"Great to be back in the car today. The #McLarenHonda feels great! Plenty more to come from this one. Thanks for all the support today guys!
— Kevin Magnussen (@KevinMagnussen) February 28, 2015"
Having almost certainly failed to run their Honda engine at full power at any point in pre-season as a means of guarding against further reliability issues, it will be fascinating to observe just how McLaren choose to utilise their power train in the opening flyaway races in Australia, Malaysia, Bahrain and China.
Will the team treat those four grands prix as mere test sessions, running relatively conservatively in the hope of just reaching the chequered flag and getting more mileage on the Honda unit?
Or will the thrill of competition encourage McLaren to throw caution to the wind and chase fast times, accepting the increased risk of retirement but, crucially, salvaging some pride and confirming the car's potential?
With each driver limited to four power units this season, as opposed to five in 2014, the likelihood is that McLaren will take the more conservative option—and who could blame them?—but the restrictions on engine components could leave the team vulnerable to penalties if the problems persist.
According to Sky Sports' David Croft, Honda's Yasuhisa Arai admitted that McLaren had used two power units in the third test alone, while Renault, who supply two teams in Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso, had managed to use just four power trains across the whole of pre-season, when there are no limitations regarding the use of components.
With very real questions hanging over the reliability and true pace of their car, as well as the fitness of their star driver, it is only natural that McLaren-Honda will head to the Australian Grand Prix with more apprehension than any of the nine teams who participated in last week's third test.
The opening phase of the campaign will unquestionably provide a test of the team's patience, efficiency and resources.
But once they've weathered the storm and eradicated the issues which effectively made pre-season a non-event, McLaren should come on strong.
.jpg?w=600 "Swift-Kelce Marriage Rumors")
