F1 End of Season Report: Rate the Team - McLaren Honda

[Paul Jeffrey]

Embarrassingly the next squad in our 'Rate the Team' feature is the former championship winning McLaren Honda outfit.

Finishing a disastrously poor ninth in the final standings ahead of just a dreadful Sauber team, scorning no podiums for the third year in a row and amassing just 30 points despite the combined talents of Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, 2017 was very much a year to forget for the British team.

Moving away from the ill judged Honda works deal for next year and switching out to Renault power, retaining both star drivers and benefiting from a cash injection thanks to new sponsorship agreements, 2018 must be an improvement for the once mighty outfit.

How do you think McLaren Honda performed in 2017?

Vote now to tell us how you rate 2017 Formula One season for McLaren Honda, and leave a comment below!

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[Jimlaad43]

 

[Matthew Allington]

I have to give McLaren credit for having a pair of very talented drivers and a car that's aerodynamically very good. The Honda engines have massively let down the team in their performance and, certainly at the start of the season, reliability, although seemed to have better reliability than Renault at the end of the season.

 

[el chasco]

2. Amazing chassis, but shitty engine

 

[Frietpan]

heh, not that great i would say.

 

[JayOTT]

This is the kind of team that ends up on a UrinatingTree lolcow video. You guys gave up a works deal for customer Renault engines BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

If Honda ever comes good and Red Bull come back to win a title, they should just build a statue of Eric Boullier in their headquarters for letting the works deal, however terrible the engine may be right now, fall into their lap.

 

[Giovaneveterano]

Probably the worst season they ever had.
I gave 4 just for the passion the whole team kept from start to finish, it should really really hard to keep the concentration when you know you'll do bad.

 

[Enzo Fazzi]

Just looking at the guys in Woking now and I've rated them an 8, the car got pretty competitive even with that horrible engine. I'm interested in seeing what they will do with a better and more reliable engine.

 

[Nick Milton]

I gave 7 , chassis is known quick, massive experience, and a thoroughbred team, drivers are there, everything in place.

Except engine. But Renault will change thing.

Respect for toughing it out with Honda, watch this space.

 

[Tobiman]

It felt like Honda gave Mclaren all the R&D money that should have gone into the engine and took a far bigger hit to their reputation.

 

[Nick Gregory]

Remember when a Honda powered McLaren was something to be feared?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

 

[Terry Rock]

I give them a 5 for a good chassis.
"Oh! how the mighty have fallen."
There was a time in Formula One, when McLaren and Williams were the teams who could call the shots on driver compensation.
It was a 'take it or leave it time.'
Not so much now.

 

[Michel Forest]

I give 8 to McLaren and 0 to Honda.

McLaren have developped a very good car and they wisely allowed Alonso to enter the Indy 500, thus making sure their star driver was not too miserable. They have a great pair of drivers with Vandoorne one of the most promising rookies in motorsports. Also, they had the best looking car.

Honda, however, gets a zero for not remotely being able to understand the current generation of engines, while rivals Mercedes and Ferrari could. Not sure if they will be able to finally get it right with Toro Rosso, but if they don't, then Sauber won't finish last in 2018...

 

[Kakusso]

The rating should be given objectively in accordance to their classification. They got a two the same way Mercedes would score ten, Ferrari nine and Redbull eight. Do they deserve a two? No but the results speak for themselves.

 

[darkelf1]

Well, i love this car in ACFL2017.....

 

[Esploratore]

I gave them 5 cause in the end, mclaren did a good job given the circumstances, chassis seems decent, drivers are good, even vandoorne improved much since the start of the year, and they gave up money (honda) to get better results (if renault remains as good as it was or it improves), since honda could never get it together, we'll see next year if their choice was right, I don't see honda improving much.

 

[CC]

I mean come on , how long they going to keep using this engine another 2-3 years , its a joke burn it and run for the hills , these guys was winning races at least before why change engines , simple hope and it didnt pay off , wonder if they could return to a mercedes engine .

 

[Matthew327]

This is the kind of team that ends up on a UrinatingTree lolcow video. You guys gave up a works deal for customer Renault engines BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

If Honda ever comes good and Red Bull come back to win a title, they should just build a statue of Eric Boullier in their headquarters for letting the works deal, however terrible the engine may be right now, fall into their lap.

You're missing an important point. Without a major sponsor - and McLaren have been without one since the Honda Deal was signed - no team can afford to be trailing the pack like McLaren have been for the past three years. It's economically impossible, no matter how much money Honda is sending to Woking. It's the same reason Sauber waved their Honda deal off again - I still don't understand how on Earth Monisha Kaltenborn could have possibly thought it to be a good idea in the first place.

Will the decision to split from Honda come back to haunt McLaren? Perhaps one day. Have Honda given us the slightest showing of competence? Not really. Is it likely that Honda are going to be a title contender within the next five years? Bloody hell no.

McLaren had absolutely no choice other than abandoning that POC engine in the back of their car. If Red Bull can fight for podiums and race wins with a Renault engine, so can McLaren. Red Bull on the other hand can afford a year or two with a miserable engine in the back of a Toro Rosso, a team that exists only so young drivers can gain experience.

Back on topic: McLaren have underperformed almost exclusively because of their GP2 engine. The car itself was decent, Fernando Alonso is probably still the best driver around, and Stoffel Vandoorne really upped his game in the later stages of the season. I still rated them at just 1/10, simply because McLaren have managed to waste three precious years of Alonso-time. If I could give a zero, I probably would. On the other hand, a 1/10 seems fair because at least they let Alonso do the Indy 500 and brought Button back to pee in Nando's seat and shunt Wehrlein head-first into a wall.

 

[Pedro Gomes]

I have to rate McLaren very highly, enduring such bad performances for so long and being able to produce a top tier chassis and aero package like they seem to have produced is very impressive. Honda however deserves a solid 1.

 

[Dovi design]

Who the hell voted 10 for this?