What happened to McLaren in the mid-1990s?

[Mark]

Throughout McLaren's history they've always been at or close to the front of the grid. Except in the mid 1990s. What went wrong?

[Robinho]

coupled with a period of domination by Williams, Renault and Newey

[jens]

Unlike other periods McLaren didn't have a consistent engine partner. Like in 84-87 TAG Porsche, 88-92 Honda or from 95 onwards Mercedes.

Honda left the sport and besides Renault (who already had partnerships with Williams and Ligier) and Ferrari there weren't any top engines left, Benetton was also Ford's so-called factory team. The chassis of McLaren was good in '93, but they were largely let down by what was considered to be a customer Ford engine. So after an underwhelming test with Lamborghini engines in late '93 McLaren was left to try to build a new future with a relative newcomer to F1 - first Peugeot and then Mercedes.

We can also remember similar lows in the history of Williams. Honda opted for McLaren after 1987 and the World Champions were left with customer Judd engines, finishing merely 7th in WCC in 1988. After that Williams started building up a new successful relationship with Renault. Another low period was 98-00, when Williams was running with outdated and re-badged Renault engines before starting to improve with factory BMW engines again.

[Malbec]

I read that one of the reasons Honda got frustrated with McLaren was that they were very picky about what technologies they would invest in.

Honda had developed its own active suspension systems as it seemed that this was the future for roadcars as well as racing, but McLaren refused to use this technology on their cars. McLaren's own active suspension system was only in its infancy and we all know what happened after with Williams introducing its own system.

I think that while McLaren were clearly extremely competent, they were caught out by several new key technologies coming out at the same time and didn't have the resources to exploit them all, on top of which they lost their Honda contract and got stuck with Peugeots for a while.

[wedge]

No one at McLaren could rival Adrian Newey.

Peugeot engines were absolutely crap and had a habit of self detonating.

Questionable #2 drivers partly due to politics.

I read that one of the reasons Honda got frustrated with McLaren was that they were very picky about what technologies they would invest in.

Honda had developed its own active suspension systems as it seemed that this was the future for roadcars as well as racing, but McLaren refused to use this technology on their cars. McLaren's own active suspension system was only in its infancy and we all know what happened after with Williams introducing its own system.

Do you have a source?

Honda tested project cars in the early 90s. RC100 didn't have active suspension but did have McLaren's transmission.

RC101 was used for major testing purposes in 1993 but very little is known. Note: AS was initially banned mid-93 but moved to 94 onwards.

8W - What? - Honda RC101

[Malbec]

Do you have a source?

Honda tested project cars in the early 90s. RC100 didn't have active suspension but did have McLaren's transmission.

RC101 was used for major testing purposes in 1993 but very little is known. Note: AS was initially banned mid-93 but moved to 94 onwards.

8W - What? - Honda RC101

No source.

The two Honda project cars were started partly out of frustration with dealing with McLaren, Honda wanted more involvement with the chassis side of things and tried to see how hard it was to develop their own cars. You can also get some inkling of the level of frustration felt in the decision not to tell McLaren about Honda's F1 pull out until the last possible moment, making it difficult for them to arrange a good engine deal in time. Senna on the other hand was personally called up by Mr Honda himself which is why he made such an effort to jump ship to Williams for '93.

By all accounts both cars were out-of-hours projects and neither were particularly quick which resulted in Honda realising that building a good chassis was harder than expected and didn't bother carrying on.

[wedge]

Hmmm... I wonder if anyone else can verify on record with this animosity between McLaren and Honda.

Honda were restructuring and cited a number of reasons for pulling out.

According to Wiki McLaren tested an active suspension car in Portugal 1992. It was crap it never went any further that year.

[Malbec]

Hmmm... I wonder if anyone else can verify on record with this animosity between McLaren and Honda.

Honda were restructuring and cited a number of reasons for pulling out.

I think animosity is a bit too strong a word to describe things, more frustration.

I have no idea how big a factor that was in Honda's decision to pull out of F1, I suspect the decision to expand their model range and production facilities in the US was by far the strongest factor.

[steveaki13]

Ah the Mclaren peugeot.

Brundle engine blow up spain 1994.wmv - YouTube

Hakkinen retirement spain 1994.wmv - YouTube

Martin Brundle massive engine blow at Silverstone - YouTube

These bring back the memorys of mclarens poor season in 94.

[wedge]

The Peugeot era was a dark period for McLaren.

Mercedes-Benz was the start of something. Hakkinen was showing his potential in outdriving the car and yet it was DC who got a race win or two.

Their engines were rated in those days.

I did work experience with Ilmor in Autumn 1996. I was being shown around the factory went into the dyno room and still got a bollo-king for it! Obviously they were testing an upgrade that day!