So from the very start in 2013, McLaren were struggling.
McLaren, it just is not going well is it? So how do one of the sports greatest teams go from the very top to the bottom, not just championship wise, team wise. Did it start with Honda or did it start before? I’m going to look through this, thoroughly. I grew up in 2000s, and for a long time as a kid, I supported McLaren, mainly because my mum did. (She loved Lewis Hamilton, and still does) but growing up they were one of the best teams in the grid, somehow I didn’t really know about the other teams like Ferrari but I knew of another. Brawn GP, let me explain. 2009 a new team appeared on the grid. They would only last a year, to obviously being brought out by Mercedes, the current F1 champions. But Ross Brawn, in my opinion the “GOAT” of team principles, headed up a team, with the duo of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, both experiences drivers and the prior driver for Honda; whom he Brawn team replaced. Stick with me here and why Brawn play a part in McLaren’s downfall in success. 2009, McLaren were not strong, the car was not great, it really wasn’t, but both Brawn and McLaren shared the same Mercedes engine- Mercedes-Benz FO 108W 2.4 L (146 cu in) V8.
But this was the year that McLaren May have started to go downhill because the BrawnBGP 001, this car was ahead of the field and brilliant! So, I really don’t think McLaren could cope with the amazement of this F1 car and I think this is when the downfall started because bar 2010, they didn’t really challenge for the title since 2008. The only saving grace for McLaren in that 2009 season was Lewis Hamilton, as he some how managed to get such a bad car to two wins and three podiums and managed to finish just behind the Red Bulls and the Brawn pairing. So bring on the years of the two best British drivers and two most recent world champions from Britain in recent years, Lewis Hamilton (2008) and Jenson Button (2009). Of course they couldn’t compete with the brilliant built cars of Red Bull Racing.
They continued to run the Mercedes engine but after 15 years were no longer , realistically the factory team of Mercedes like they were before. But from the three years Hamilton and Button were at McLaren, it almost seems like the pair driving were the saving graces for the team, and made the team seem not as awful as it really was, as they took the cars to wins. The 2011 car, MP4-26 was that awful, it was labelled a "mess" by Martin Brundle. Yet Button and Hamilton managed to get it to 6 wins. Due to the fact Button and Hamilton were the saving graces to those cars between 2010-2012. The chassis that McLaren were producing were not exactly great, yeah the Mercedes engine had not entered its peak yet but the chassis they were producing tended to be awfully bad.
2013, it was the start of no wins. Almost he beginning of the end. Perez replaced Hamilton as Hamilton went off to help a “struggling team” Which really, Hamilton just made the best decision of his life, of course with Mercedes is now a four time world champion. But 2013, nothing no podium some points not much else. However they still had that Mercedes engine which now was starting to win races with the factory team.Yet McLaren were doing nothing yet again.
Martin Whitmarsh said his before he first race on his team in 2013:
“As of today we are clearly struggling”
So from the very start in 2013 McLaren were struggling. They continued to struggle all year. This was the first year since 1980, McLaren didn’t even get a podium finish. Sergio Perez then left at the end of the year for Force India, where he has stayed since. 2014, by far, by a bloody mile they had the best engine in the grid. The turbo hybrid era began and they had the mercedes “Mercedes PU106A Hybrid Turbo[2] 1.6 L (98 cu in) V6 (90°), 15,000 RPM limited , in a mid-mounted, rear-wheel drive layout” in the back of their car. A new designer took over on the designing front for them, as Tim Goss took over from Paddy Lowe, whom moved to Mercedes, rightly so to win championships. The first race looked almost promising for McLaren taking a double podium with Jason Button and Rookie Kevin Magnussen. But the year only really went down hill from their. Nothing else came from them, 1 podium, 1 better than 2013.
However this year would see them from the last time take a Mercedes engine...they got rid of he best engine on the grid to bring back an iconic pairing of McLaren-Honda. They wanted to go back to the glory days of Senna and the MP4/4. A 19-year-long relationship ended, Ron Dennis ended the 3 time championship wining relationship. Yes surprisingly only 3 championships but they came damn close a couple of time and they sure as hell had some good drivers in those cars. Dennis said this on the new power unit they were about to take on:
"[Honda's engine progress] is mindblowing, the engine is a piece of jewellery. They are further ahead than expected. The competitiveness of the engine is without question."
Was he wrong. Yep, yeah he was. Now, now it became really clear McLaren were in trouble during the 2015 season, trading the brilliant ahead of the field Mercedes engine for a brand new, rubbish (but can we question that now?) engine from Honda. McLaren had a new partnership in their drivers as well. As Fernando Alonso rejoined the team after seven years since he last sat in a McLaren seat. But yet again the double world champion’s move wouldn’t pay off. The Honda engines turned out to be some what of a mess, extremely unreliable and not even close to what McLaren had bigged the engine up to be. 2015, wasn’t to be their worst season. But really was the thing drawing McLaren to Honda the belief of a championship, the idea of being a factory team again or plain and simply both? In the first race of the 2015 season with the brand new engine, it saw Button finish last and get lapped twice! Magnussen he didn’t even start (Alonso had concussion so could not start the race anyway). The season went on and saw the pair of Alonso and Button retire a grand total of 12 time throughout the season. However McLaren still had belief in the engine, they genuinely thought they could fight at the front against Mercedes. The now resigned team principle Éric Boullier said this:
"You cannot beat the world champion if you are a customer - it is impossible. The path to go with another engine manufacturer to be a works team was absolutely the way to go."
Yet it only feels like yesterday Mercedes customer team Williams, were fighting them. Remember the British GP. 2015 would see McLaren finish 9th in Constructor’s ChampionshipBut 2016 came along and the same story would repeat again. But Ron Dennis still thought Honda was the right choice: "We believe in Honda, and we will achieve with Honda, it's just taking a little longer than we would have liked." It would only see the have 9 retirements but no podiums, no wins. Nothing. It would also see the introduction of Stoffel Vandoorne, and 2016 would be the last year for Jenson Button to race full time in formula 1.
“We will win again” -Éric Boullier.
2017 saw a shake up at McLaren. Ron Dennis after 27 years he was gone, he had left McLaren. Now 2017, I feel like their is a lot of insight into this year due to well, “Grand Prix Driver” on Amazon, which is amazing would recommend watching it. But this was also they year they brought in Zak Brown, the American, owner of United Autosport. But really all he wants to do is please Fernando ( say it how he would, that’s the only way I can hear it right now) But Zak Brown is meant to be the salesman, the guy who could sell this ageing team to anyone and everyone. With no title sponsor McLaren headed into 2017 saying they would win once again. But they wouldn’t. However Fernando Alonso would stay again for another year and they’d keep Stoffel Vandoorne. 2017 saw them 9th in the championship again, the car was a mess so was the engine. They came 9th with only 30 points in the board. A grand total of 13 retirements and 2 DNS, it was horrid year for McLaren. Now, now I’m talking about the back end of last year into this. McLaren, they were not happy. They wanted out. Toro Rosso would take Honda engines in 2018 as well as they were meant to but, that wasn’t happening. Then came the split:
"For a combination of reasons our partnership has not flourished as any of us would have wished. It is certainly not for the want of effort on the part of either Honda or McLaren, but the time has come to move ahead in different directions."
-Zak Brown
So it was over right McLaren’s horror years, they have the “best chassis on the grid” so once hey get a good engine, they will be “fighting the red bulls” Here it comes McLaren-Renault. With the best chassis on the grid and a brilliant driver in Fernando Alonso, whom would also race in WEC in 2018-2019 as well, they would win again, well at least get a podium. First came testing which already didn’t look well for McLaren, hardly any laps completed, and this was one of the good days. But it started to look good during Sunday’s for McLaren in the beginning. Alonso scored in the first 5 races, and yet again he is out driving the car, Vandoorne has scored, A fair bit.
But then it started to drop off again, it seemed to go downhill. They stared to have a few retirement on the board again. Then the revolt. The staff at McLaren were revolting against their heads, Zak Brown and Eric Boullier. They wanted Martin Whitmarsh back, then all at the same time #FreddoGate hit us all. Turns out the staff weren’t getting treaded well at all. It all looked as though it was crumbling at McLaren’s feet. Now is Whitmarsh the guy to be helping McLaren get back, not really but are their other people 100%. In the mists of all of the man in charge Zak Brown says it could take “2-10 years” to get McLaren back to the front. Is this the guy they want in charge? Is it? No!
Now Éric Boullier has resigned and in comes Zak’s BFF Gil de Ferran, to take over. Not only the fact that Brown and Ferran are best friends isn’t not sitting well with people, it is the fact Vandoorne, whom hasn’t been as good as his teammate, his girlfriend is the daughter of Ferran. Eddie Jordan, yes he isn’t a favourite among many but his opinion on it was very true. I’ll leave it here: http://f1.channel4.com/video/eddie-jordan-williams-and-mclaren
It is a good analysis of both McLaren and Williams but McLaren in particular. So, what can McLaren do to solve their problems. Well may an answer is a new head of aerodynamics because that chassis is not that good. Force India have leaped frogged them in the table and they work with only a fraction of the Woking team's budget.
Maybe if they had waited they could have possibly reignited the relationship with Mercedes whom have a better engine than Renault. Toto Wolff admitted they could have had the engine from the silver arrows but choose to be hasty and get what they wanted. Zak Brown, get rid of him? I would, the guy is more focused on everything but Formula 1, all he wants to do is please Alonso, "An IndyCar team, yeah let's make one because it'll please Fernando" The guy before coming in only a year ago had no prior experience of formula 1...surely the guy heading up your team should have F1 experience?
Get Alonso out. I love Fernando Alonso, don't get me wrong. But it all seems like he is a driver with way too much power and it seems as though McLaren are desperate to keep him, when their is talent waiting and a Finnish driving looking like he's on his way out from and Italian team. Fernando Alonso needs to go, so they can not fall and follow what ever the demands of a driver of. It's a shame McLaren are in such a mess, they truly were once such a great team, and it is hard to watch what is happening right now, but with Zak Brown and co. they will dig themselves deeper into the whole that started nearly 10 years ago.
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