Champagne corks would hardly have been popped at the McLaren Technology Centre as the test at Jerez drew to a close last Wednesday.
In total, the team managed half the number of laps in total (79) that front-runners Mercedes managed on day one alone. There were always going to be gremlins as McLaren and Honda renewed a once-classic Formula 1 partnership but the limited running time will be a cause for concern.
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But there are two weeks left until the second test in Barcelona and it is worth noting the parallels between now and the start of the two F1 greats’ last partnership at the top of the sport.
It was at the end of 1987 that Alain Prost first drove the MP4/2C in anger at Silverstone, a session that drew to an abrupt close with gearbox failure. The subsequent test in Estoril hardly left their rivals fearful of what might follow.
But then the Gordon Murray-designed car clicked and it became an F1 legend, winning 15 of the 16 grands prix in the 1988 season as the team ran away with both the constructors’ and drivers’ championship. No one is about to suggest that this new partnership is going to pull something out of the bag in the same manner. For one, there is not quite the same unlimited testing in the rule book with which to make wholesale changes.
But the point is that McLaren-Honda, for all their early problems, are not necessarily in as big a mess as it may seem. In fact, all the right noises are being made from the MTC in Woking, England, even if this year’s car, the MP4-30 is not exactly making the right noises with a top speed in testing 30km/h slower than that of the quickest, Williams.
Since the bloodless coup which brought an end to Martin Whitmarsh’s reign of the team and Ron Dennis’ return to the F1 frontline, McLaren have made no secret of their ambition. Dennis has stated that he does not just want to return to the top but to dominate the sport as McLaren-Honda once did with eight titles in all (four constructors and four drivers) in the two F1 behemoths’ relatively short marriage in the sport, which lasted until the 1992 season.
In many ways, it sets them up for an almighty fall but he is absolutely adamant that is the goal. Ask those who work or have worked for Dennis and they will tell you he is relentless when he has a target.
“The outcome is inevitable – we will return to winning ways,” said Dennis defiantly recently.
But how exactly are McLaren setting about moving themselves to a period of total dominance from a season in which they notched up about a quarter of the points of Mercedes and finished fifth in the constructors’ standings only a few points ahead of Force India?
Restructuring of the hierarchy has been a key aspect. Eric Boullier was brought in as racing director and one of his major tasks was to change those at the helm. It meant that sporting director Sam Michael, brought in by Whitmarsh and groomed to succeed him, was shown the door and then Peter Prodromou, one of Adrian Newey’s key lieutenant’s, was brought in.
Prodromou was described by Boullier “as the cherry on the top of the cake” and it is clear McLaren have paid handsomely to persuade him to leave Red Bull, with Williams also in the market for his services.
But just as key was the fact that McLaren were able to get him to work early on this year’s car. It means there are already Red Bull-esque qualities to the aerodynamics, particularly on the rear of what is once more a beautifully designed car. Like Red Bull’s cars of late, it has more of that hour-glass figure with a tightly cut waist, what Dennis has liked calling “size zero” in the build-up to the season start.
That look with the exaggerated cut side pods is aimed at generating rear downforce. The other notable and more costly acquisition is that of Fernando Alonso on a £25million-a-year (Dh140m), two-year deal, a signing that suggests the new McLaren-Honda partnership could really deliver.
Dennis makes no secret of the fact that there has been a “degree of guesstimate” in the team’s approach this season, that will not have been Alonso’s response, the Spaniard known for his calculated decision making.
To have foregone the rest of his Ferrari deal and moved back to a team under the leadership of Dennis, with whom he so spectacularly fell out during their last pairing in 2007, he must have seen some sort of untold riches under the body of the car.
Which brings us to the Honda engine. Much has been made of the FIA regulations and how they might be weighted against Honda as a new engine supplier for 2015 in terms of the number of changes it can make to said engine.
But it must also be said that Honda know the benchmark as do McLaren having previously been powered by the championship-winning Mercedes unit. Clearly the team did not get the best out of it last season, lapping at 1.4 seconds slower than the Mercedes’ factory team in 2014.
Honda are back for the first time since pulling the plug on their own F1 operation in the lead-up to the 2009 season when its renamed team, BrawnGP, shone so spectacularly. The new V6 hybrids are more in keeping with Honda’s approach to their road-car operation, and its new F1 engine is described as aggressively compact.
Aggression by its very nature means risk and Dennis has made it clear he is targeting first place as the be all and end all, with reliability issues seen as a necessary evil, at least initially in that quest.
Solid effort from @JensonButton as he takes the MP4-30 into the 1m27s for the first time. #Jerez pic.twitter.com/1WGASIQ6C0
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) February 4, 2015
But the reality is that Honda have just one team to supply on the grid and hence there is no alternative distraction. The same, in some ways, cannot be said of McLaren, who have previously been
accused of taking their eye off the ball with their non-F1 business interests such as its road car operation or McLaren Applied Technology.
In Jerez, McLaren had sensor issues, a power unit component failure and a water leak to contend with but such gremlins are not dissimilar to those encountered by Red Bull in testing a year ago. Back then, no one thought they could aspire to the three race wins they eventually achieved last year courtesy of Daniel Ricciardo.
The McLaren-Honda power train is clearly complex, Dennis proudly stating that “some of the technologies that have been introduced haven’t existed before”.
He added: “The problems that we have had are really stemming from the intense packaging that goes inside the engine, but this is what testing is all about.
“Have we taken some calculated technical risks? Yes. I expect it will be two or three races before we really get the lie of the land.”
McLaren are confident they have addressed the lack of front downforce that proved such an issue last season. In a change from 2014, they have adopted a tighter gap between the underside of the nose and the top of the front wing, and in overall design terms the team have liked to talk about synergy across every dimension of McLaren.
The work done over the winter, which admittedly has yet to be realised by results on the track, led Boullier to boast: “Some people on the shop floor are happy to say that this is one of the most exciting and best built cars from McLaren. But we have to stay grounded. We need to see what is going to happen, what is our performance, and how successful we will be.”
The end aim is to be as successful as the days when McLaren-Honda once blazed the trail, hence the ‘Back to the Future’ film clip by Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button recently. Whether that means being back to the front any time soon is another matter.
