How Honda Went From Being A Meme To The Best Engine Suppliers In F1

[Music] i made the decision to come back in mclaren for for two reasons the first is the desire to win i think mclaren on the project has the the same values and the same uh tired of winning and be the best in formula one this project is very attractive and i couldn't say no [Music] gp2 ranges thank you you always ask the questions where is it when are you going to be competitive and then you get every time i speak to the press it's how about now how about now how about now how about now it's uh it's unbelievable the pressure from the outside but um from the inside we know where we are we know we're improving we're positive top three wishes for the new owners of f1 equal engines for everyone [Music] not electric yeah and not honda [Music] there's roman grosjean third here wasn't here a few years ago for lotus breezing past the honda engine of the mclaren [Music] [Music] it's the 29th of january 2015. formula one is about to enter its second season with the turbo hybrid power units the three engine supplies that participated in last year's campaign are working hard to improve upon the progress made in 2014 but this time there's a new kid on the block partnering up with a team which they achieved huge success with in the past introducing the honda powered mp430 for the car launch mclaren uploaded a video to their youtube channel titled time to make history and oh boy you bets they made history mclaren would go on to have their worst season in 35 years in fact the entire three years they had honda as their engine suppliers were abysmal there are two key qualities a power unit must have in order to be successful power and reliability and honda didn't have either of those their lack of power was clear for everyone to see all you have to do is watch the highlights from the 2015 japanese grand prix to know just how much of a liability the honda engines were as for their reliability it would be better for me to portray their struggles through some statistics from 2015 to 2017 mclaren accumulated a whopping 825 grid place penalties for changing power unit components that equates to qualifying on pole and starting 20th for 41 grand prix or the entire 2016 and 2017 seasons combined for comparison teams with mercedes engines only took a total of 55 grid place penalties during that same time frame but gone are the days with mclaren and enter the presents where honda are powering red bull in their championship fight with mercedes-benz who would have thought the engine manufacturers that became a meme for years would produce the best power units in formula one so in this video i wanted to shed some light on the story of how honda got to this point what exactly went wrong with mclaren and how they overcame that early misfortune to win again it goes without saying that the mclaren honda project was a complete disaster a majority of the blame was directed towards honda for their underpowered and unreliable engines but mclaren weren't entirely innocent themselves as the ceo of the company and a man who desperately wanted his team to quickly progress from being known as just another mercedes customer team ron dennis had pressured honda into entering the sports a year earlier than they had planned additionally both parties came to an agreement on an unrealistic set of dimensional targets for the engine one they called the psi zero philosophy essentially honda were required to design an engine around a very tight mclaren chassis to create what in theory was a great concept but in reality that was far from the case in 2014 martin brundle explained how mercedes were able to obtain such a significant power advantage over their competitors in a great piece on sky sports at the time we learned that mercedes were running a different turbo arrangements to ferrari and renault where they split the turbine and compressor to either end of the internal combustion engine and connected them via a shaft running down the middle this brought with it a great deal of benefits better ers efficiency more compact error packaging and a lot more however honda wanted to take that idea one step further their concepts revolved around fitting the compressor within the v of the engine not only did this give the rear of the mclaren smaller overhang than the ferrari or renault but it also meant the engine didn't need to be moved further back like the split turbo layout of the mercedes but in order for the compressor to actually fit within the v it had to be smaller than those of its rivals now there was a pretty simple solution to compensate for the reduction in size just run it at a faster rate to give the same boost however at first the mgu-h which runs on the same shaft as the turbo couldn't run at the required speed due to a vibrational issue eventually this issue was fixed and it was expected that they would come close to being competitive unfortunately though this isn't what happened as the compressor speed was increased the frictional resistance also increased which compromised the power unit's energy efficiency meaning it couldn't recharge the battery as fast this made tracks like spa absolutely horrible for the mclaren honda as they could only use the extra 160 bhp on one of two of the straights in fact there were sections of the track where they were running 200 bhp down on other cars according to project leader yasuhisa arai honda identified that the issue was related to the way the turbo had been laid out but they were unable to change its during the season as part of honda's restructuring in 2016 arai would be replaced by yasuki hasagawa as project's leader during that year honda made some impressive steps forward on the other engine suppliers helping mclaren improve their constructor's position to p6 but to this advancement field and overly ambitious targets we have a plan to challenge mercedes in 2017 predicted hasagawa at the end of 2016. so what exactly was that plan then to redesign the entire power unit and make drastic changes to the arrangement of the turbo compressor and mguh the new design followed the mercedes blue turbo layouts mentioned earlier but with the mguh in the center of the v all connected via a shaft this modification aimed to improve thermal efficiency and other major objectives included reducing the overall weight of the unit and lowering the center of gravity honda admitted that this concept was high risk and would take time to reach its maximum potential but at this point mclaren were coming to the end of their road the bahrain grand prix was probably the worst weekend of the year and attorney pointed their decision to part ways with the japanese manufacturers both fernando alonso and stoffel vandoorne had a combined five engine failures with three of those affecting the belgian who didn't even make it to the start as his power units gave up on the outlap from the pits honda revealed that some dyno correlation problems severely compromised the early performance and reliability of the 2017 engine they did manage to make some progress but not enough to satisfy mclaren and the two announced that they would separate at the end of the year but it turned out that parting ways with the toxic relationship at mclaren would be the best thing for honda to succeed on the 15th of september 2017 it was announced that the japanese manufacturers would be the engine supplies for toro rosso for 2018. this provided an opportunity for them to develop in a much lower profile environments one of the main problems that contributed to all the failures at mclaren was a lack of communication and collaboration toro rosso on the other hand were very open about their internal workings and honda acknowledged this by showing key members inside the research projects in sakura in places where no mclaren member had ever set foot this season was very much a turning point for honda as they took their f1 efforts to another level greater funding better facilities and a much more effective management structure throughout the year they pushed relentlessly with developments with the power unit becoming a more refined version of the architecture first used with mclaren in 2017 their spec-2 engine made its debut at the canadian grand prix where they noticed a significant improvement in power while also bettering reliability during practice for the russian grand prix the spec 3 power unit was introduced nearly a month earlier than originally planned again the drivers reported a big step forward in terms of power through the rev range but the engine's drivability wasn't great so they reverted back to the old spec for the rest of that weekend and worked on optimizing the engine mappings and gearbox synchronization to aid the issue for their home race in japan honda found that the upgrade boosted power by an extra 40bhp which helped hartley and ghazily set times good enough for p6 and p7 in qualifying toro rosso were also more relaxed on the requirements for the power unit dimensions which allowed honda greater freedom to increase the size of a number of components some of these changes alone provided an increase in power and reliability instantly but despite the size increase their pu still remained the most compact on the grid the senior team red bull were closely observing the performance gains of the honda and were very impressed with the progress leading them to sign a two-year deal for 2019 and 2020 a thing of beauty that's how christian horner described the new power units on the very first day of testing max verstappen was also in awe of honda's masterpiece and picked up on their incredible attention to detail on route to taking a podium at the australian grand prix verstappen made a brilliant pass around the outside of sebastian vettel which was an early sign that red bull and honda had the potential to become a race winning combination this came to pass for the first time at the austrian grand prix where max delivered honda's first victory in formula 1 for 13 years another win would follow just two races later in hockenheim and for the next weekend in hungary verstappen took the first poll of his career at honda's first of the turbo hybrid era after the summer break came a number of power tracks one being the temple of speed monza the speckful power units brought some significant changes to the combustion system as well as a new field composition from their partners exxonmobil and it was this very upgrade that helped them reach the same level as mercedes but it took until the second last race of the season for this to become evidence the 2019 brazilian grand prix was one of the most entertaining races of the decade at this point hamilton had already wrapped up the championship in austin so it was really the first gloves of battle between him and max verstappen the two went back and forth all race long but in the end the dutchman outdealed his rival to take the third win of the season pierre gasly made it a honda 1 2 with a superb drive in the toro rosso by outdragging lewis hamilton on the last lap to the line and no he didn't just hold hamilton off he actually began pulling away from the mercedes such was the strength of the power units 2019 was the year honda broke back into the spotlights they ended the season with the least track failures of all four manufacturers and zero engine related retirements considering the point they were at two years ago that's a monumental growth so before the abu dhabi grand prix red bull and honda announced that they would be extending their partnership to the 2021 season in the last year and a half they have only gone from strength to strength two more race wins with red bull in 2020 as well as a stunning victory for pierre gasly in monza which resonated with honda a lot more than people realize the frenchman's underdog success story from being dropped by the senior team to winning with the junior team showed his incredible fighting spirit and never say die mentality one very similar to their own for three straight years they were the worst engine suppliers on the grid in 2021 they are leading in both the drivers and constructors championships honda's journey in these past six years has been full of many trials and tribulations but regardless they have risen above everything that's been thrown their way and made it to the top once again i hope you all enjoyed if you made it this far thank you very much for watching if you don't mind please consider sharing this video around with others to support the effort that's gone into making it and subscribe to the channel with bell notifications to keep up to date with more in-depth stories like these in the future and as always i'll see you in the next one [Music] [Music] you

Channel: BMPH

Views: 331,516

Rating: 4.9464788 out of 5

Keywords: formula 1, f1, formula one, honda f1, f1 2021, honda meme, red bull honda, mclaren honda, honda f1 engine, tommo, driver61, josh revell, wf1, the racing pilot, the race, john warren, bmphf1, bmph

Id: sg1LQpYolX8

Length: 14min 46sec (886 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/r6098]

1983-1992 Honda: Am I a joke to you?

I know you’re referring to the latest era btw, I just couldn’t resist.

[u/byMyXzx]

No.

[u/3DSD]

Funny enough it was Verstappen who overtook Alonso when he spoke his famous words

[u/tacotruck88]

0 titles = "Best Engine Supplier"?

Results are great this year, but please this recency bias is total shit and massively annoying.

[u/Christopher-Pyne]

Best engine supplier in F1? The Honda engine has improved, but it's a joke to say they are the best supplier in F1 when Red Bull has clearly designed the best car.

McLaren with Norris have been exceptional since moving over to the Merc engine.

The main Merc team are running so much more rear wing compared to everyone else due to their low rake car. This is the cause of them being slow on the straights.

[u/Ohwhat_anight]

I think the McLaren Honda team was doomed from the start. McLaren was so confident in their chassis that they felt they could put any engine into that fit their grand design and they'd immediately be competitive. Honda very clearly was too sure of themselves to agree to half of the terms that McLaren set out (notably coming in an entire year early). I don't know if over time Honda could have made McLaren the competitive car they wanted (or that Red Bull is enjoying now), but it's obvious McLaren were expecting immediate results and Honda wasn't able to deliver that.

I also think Honda benefited greatly from Red Bull's entire company philosophy. It's very obvious that Red Bull is willing to take risks and give lengths of rope as long as they see improvement. I know Red Bull was in the middle of feuding with Renault around this time, but from my understanding they were so impressed with Honda's relentless work on the Toro Rosso engine that they knew very early on in the season they wanted them for the actual Red Bull team. Credit to them for believing in Honda as well. It wouldn't have been hard for any team to completely dismiss Honda after the utter failure that was the McLaren Honda experiment.