What happened to McLaren in the mid-1990s?

[ArrowsFA1]

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?

The late 70's was a pretty dire period as well. After Hunt's title in '76 the team slowly declined until Ron's Project 4 organisation took over with the support of Marlboro.

[zako85]

Honda's pullout from F1 after 1992 was one of the worst decisions in all of history of motorsport. I am sure they really regretted this later on, but with McLaren now in a tight relationship with Mercedes, Honda ended up buying BAR and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on running its own team with no meaningful results. Brawn's (former Honda team) double championship win in 2009, right after Honda's second F1 pullout was another bitter pill for them to swallow. Honda's execs probably cringe right now at any mentions of Formula 1.

[Mark]

Quite so. Both times the teams they abandoned went on to have success with Mercedes. Brawn especially was reportedly 100% funded by Honda but they got zero credit for the achievements.

[Malbec]

Honda's pullout from F1 after 1992 was one of the worst decisions in all of history of motorsport. I am sure they really regretted this later on, but with McLaren now in a tight relationship with Mercedes, Honda ended up buying BAR and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on running its own team with no meaningful results. Brawn's (former Honda team) double championship win in 2009, right after Honda's second F1 pullout was another bitter pill for them to swallow. Honda's execs probably cringe right now at any mentions of Formula 1.

Honda's decisions to pull out of F1 in the late '60's and early 90's were part of a broader strategic vision though, Honda was quite a small company then so the costs of competing in F1 were disproportionately large for them.

The money and engineering resources freed up in the '60's went into developing a new globally marketed hatchback called the 'Civic' that turned Honda into a global player, not a niche motorbike/sportscar maker that was then of a similar size to Suzuki.

In the '90's the money went into rapidly expanding Honda's American presence which meant that the company went overtook Nissan and became the second biggest Japanese car maker and often the most profitable.

I don't know about the most recent pullout though, Honda posted $10 billion profits for the last year so a few $100 million saved here and there won't have been as important as it was in the '60s and '90s. They certainly lost out on huge publicity that they would have gained if the 2009 championship was won by a Honda, not a Brawn.

[Don Capps]

They certainly lost out on huge publicity that they would have gained if the 2009 championship was won by a Honda, not a Brawn.

As shocking as it might seem to those totally enamored with formula one, there is, perhaps, also the point that they simply no longer had any real interest and it did not really matter to them. They finished a commitment and that was that. The American market has always been the focal point of Honda's efforts and the F1 world championship is pretty much irrelevant as a sales gimmick in the US. Besides, the Wall Street Depression did affect Honda and its operations, especially in the US.

[Malbec]

As shocking as it might seem to those totally enamored with formula one, there is, perhaps, also the point that they simply no longer had any real interest and it did not really matter to them.

It has to be said that the Japanese domestic market and their makers have both lost interest in sportscars and racing full stop, and the complete lack of sportscars in the entire Honda and Toyota lineup is a result of that.

The major Japanese makers have instead focused their attention on green tech, believing that is where future profits are to be made and F1 has limited relevance to this objective.

The American market has always been the focal point of Honda's efforts and the F1 world championship is pretty much irrelevant as a sales gimmick in the US. Besides, the Wall Street Depression did affect Honda and its operations, especially in the US.

The American market is catered for by Honda's Indy efforts. The same is true of Toyota and NASCAR.

While maintaining and expanding market share in the US is important to Honda, their current objective is to expand market share in the BRIC states. Just as expansion in the US in the '90s was accompanied by the building of new factories across the US, we can see new Honda factories spring up across China and India (where Honda recently split from its Indian partner Hero to build up its brand there) with third-world specific car models being developed.

F1 was used for two purposes by Honda. One was advertising in old markets like Europe and new markets in the BRIC states where F1 was a good tool. The other was for training and identifying upcoming engineering talent from within its ranks.

I guess the concern that liquidity couldn't be maintained throughout the credit crisis was the foremost concern when Honda and the other makers pulled out, few could have predicted a return to profitability for the best run makers so quickly back in those dark days.

[D-Type]

Interesting point about Honda focussing on green technology. Born out by the colour scheme adopted for the Honda cars shortly before they withdrew.

[wedge]

Manufacturers come as go as they please. Renault went out while they were at their peak. Honda left at the right time compared to 2008/09

The American market is catered for by Honda's Indy efforts. The same is true of Toyota and NASCAR.

That's a funny one. They're really there to sell mid-size sedans.

They don't have huge capacity pushrod V8 in their line up but relied on Chevy in that department.

In the Nationwide series they have gone to using pony car body shells yet Toyota has no coupe in their line up and stuck with the Camry.

Interesting point about Honda focussing on green technology. Born out by the colour scheme adopted for the Honda cars shortly before they withdrew.

At the same time they ran a small island fully on hydrogen power which costs similar to the amount of money being pumped into F1 at that time.

With new emission regs it will be interesting how the Type R brand evolves as turbos rule the roost.

[Malbec]

That's a funny one. They're really there to sell mid-size sedans.

They don't have huge capacity pushrod V8 in their line up but relied on Chevy in that department.

In the Nationwide series they have gone to using pony car body shells yet Toyota has no coupe in their line up and stuck with the Camry.

I don't think Toyota's aims with NASCAR are as direct as promoting individual models, more at establishing their brand as being as much American as Japanese in much the same way as Ford has come to be viewed by many Brits as being defacto British.

At the same time they ran a small island fully on hydrogen power which costs similar to the amount of money being pumped into F1 at that time.

Indeed, I'd love to know how much the entire fuel cell project costs. It can't be cheap and I bet it makes the F1 budget look like small change.

With new emission regs it will be interesting how the Type R brand evolves as turbos rule the roost.

Thats the odd thing about both Honda and Toyota. They've invested so much in hybrids and fuel cell technology but they haven't really bothered to get the most out of current petrol technology with small turbocharged engines or Diesels.

[D-Type]

Thats the odd thing about both Honda and Toyota. They've invested so much in hybrids and fuel cell technology but they haven't really bothered to get the most out of current petrol technology with small turbocharged engines or Diesels.

Perhaps they realise that current technology is only a stopgap and hybrids and fuel cells is the long term future.
When we use up all the oil (which is reality as stocks are finite) we'll have to produce electricity from nuclear, hydro or new technologies like wind, wave and solar. Then we'll have to find a way of using electricity in a power station to power a car: batteries, produce hydrogen by electrolysis, synthesise CO2 and water to make some sort of petrol. or use alcohol - but you need spsce to grow the sugar cane or sugar beet and energy to concentrate it by distillation or whatever.

But this is wandering a long way away from McLaren's dip in performance. But they have bounced back into contention, which Lotus, Brabham etc didn't and Williams don't seem to be able to do