Mclaren - Honda Partnership : Why did it fail?

[Nitrodaze]

I have wondered for some time now why the collaboration of two centres of excellence such as Honda and Mclaren failed to reach their collaborative goal. Especially in a situation where each has to contribute their best product which must combine with the effect that the complementary excellence of each of their products elevates both to the desired goal of superceeding the best the competition can produce.

Clearly, combined they are as good as the weakest component in that partnership. Hence, an objective measurement of how each component measure up to the standard required for their mutual success was required. This obviously would mean mutual respect and right to probe each other was required. So how did they go about it?

With hindsight, Mclaren were over confident of their chassis of which the true quality of the chassis relative to the benchmark in the paddock was not easily decernable. And the Honda engine appeared very fragile and failure prone; which was apparent on race weeekends. But how much the coupling of the engine to chassis had contributed to the engine failures were not discernable. Also not discernable was how fast the Honda engine was as they appeared to run the engine under its full capacity.

Looking back, could one say the collaboration failed because there was not sufficient mutual respect between both parties? Or was it a case of inflexible specifications that compromised the possibilities of the potential of the collaboration?

If we look at the new partnership between Redbull and Honda, we could safely say the Mclaren chassis was not as good as they aspired to achieve. But why could they not see that? The Mclaren platform coupled to a Honda engine that was essentially a compromised design to fit into the Mclaren platform was never going to give both parties any indication of how far off the mark the chassis was from the optimum design.

Of course, there were lots of human factors at play, The pressure for the project management on both sides to deliver success must have been immense. This is indicative of the blame culture that followed, which was a consequence of the project lacking a visionary with the authority to steer the project through the mucky waters of the pressure to succeed.

I suppose one could say the failure of the project started at the failure of the Mclaren board to collaborate effectively through what was a defining project to its future as a potential force in F1.

Who is laughing now? Surely Redbull and Honda.

Just thinking out loud!

[Jag_Warrior]

Or was it a case of inflexible specifications that compromised the possibilities of the potential of the collaboration?

I'm going with that. It just didn't seem like there was enough give & take by either party... maybe more on the part of Honda than McLaren though. Honda, being a Japanese company, seemed to be working hard on fixing the many issues. But along the way, McLaren (particularly Alonso) seemed to rub their face in it at every turn, when things didn't go as planned. The Japanese take particular offense to that sort of thing. The situation with Red Bull and Renault was similar, but the French, while riled, took the beat downs a bit better.

If we look at the new partnership between Redbull and Honda, we could safely say the Mclaren chassis was not as good as they aspired to achieve. But why could they not see that?

Just as an outside observer, my guess was always that McLaren had a bit of arrogance based on their past successes. If the new management structure had been in place when the chassis architecture was being planned, I honestly believe that McLaren, with a greater degree of collaboration, could have enjoyed the success that Red Bull is experiencing now.