A shortage of new parts means McLaren expect to face a repeat of today’s problem in the second day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya tomorrow.
Jenson Button only managed to complete 21 laps before a faulty MGU-K seal forced him to stop.
The team fear a similar fate will befall Fernando Alonso tomorrow as the team await delivery of a revised part which is not expected to arrive until Saturday.
“The faulty part caused an issue that requires full replacement of the power unit,” explained Honda’s chief officer of motorsport Yasuhisa Arai, “and the time needed to make those changes effectively ends today’s programme”.
“We’ll need to run a re-designed component to avoid a potential repeat of the problem. Unfortunately, we won’t be in possession of that updated part until Saturday, which means that we may face the same problem when we run again tomorrow.”
McLaren plan to “make the best changes we can overnight” in order to help Alonso complete as much running as possible. The team intend to spend the day evaluating widely differing set-up changes and say the car is therefore likely to spend a lot of time in the garage between runs.
“Hopefully, with a bespoke solution ready for Saturday, both drivers will have an opportunity to get some useful laps under their belts, with Jenson driving on Saturday, and Fernando concluding the test on Sunday,” Arai added.
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Atticus (@atticus-2)
19th February 2015, 19:19
My hunch is that the seal has broken when Jenson dropped the hammer somewhat – not literally, not even figuratively, but rather when McLaren decided it was enough of the pacesetter-plus-20-second lap times of Jerez and sent Button out to do laps with around, say, 80% power levels. (Button actually spent a couple of hours on the top of the timesheets.)
So from that I gather Alonso may revert to much slower laps tomorrow to avoid the part in question getting loose inside the car. In other words, we may be guaranteed to see another day in which the McLaren will not only won’t show their hand, but will even purposefully lag significantly behind the opposition in terms of pace.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
19th February 2015, 19:27
True, and probably with a lot of in-out laps. They’ll keep the suspense for the weekend :)
Tom
19th February 2015, 19:59
Why do I get the feeling Mclaren are just falling further and further behind? They need something to go well for them soon. I guess a new paint scheme would be an easy answer to that one eh?
Pete (@repete86)
19th February 2015, 21:25
I would like to take this moment to point out that the MP4/4 didn’t get to do any running at all until a week before the first race of 1988. Obviously this is a totally different situation and times have changed, but anything’s possible. I’d also like to imagine that Ron Dennis is just being a diabolical genius and this is all just sandbagging, though that’s obviously not the case. It’s fun to think it, though.
Todfod (@todfod)
20th February 2015, 6:02
This is getting hard to watch. They will be halfway through the test sessions today, and they still haven’t gotten over tons of issues. They haven’t a decent run with their PU running at optimal output or done any setup work
I’m guessing they’re gonna be at the back of the pack for at least the 1st 3 to 4 races
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
20th February 2015, 8:01
“We’re waiting for a part” – Good to see F1 becoming more road-relevant.
Jochenrindt78
20th February 2015, 14:24
Nice :-)
Mad Eric (@mad-eric)
20th February 2015, 17:47
That is a classic! Every time I look at that again I can’t help but burst out laughing again and again…
joe jopling (@jop452)
20th February 2015, 10:01
Surely Honda will have run this engine at 100% and beyond at the factory and simulated all types of conditions and solved any issues that came up…..I know there is no substitute for the real thing, but I am surprised that with the engine(we assume) not at full power, this seal broke……lets hope the engine was not at maximum……
Philip (@philipgb)
20th February 2015, 10:36
First race of last year Hamilton was out because of a split piece of rubber insulation. You can test all you like but sometimes an unknown unknown won’t make itself known if it’s not known how to test for it.
Even road cars get recalls because an inherent fault only becomes apparent in the real world.
I’m still awestruck how reliable the engines were last year.
Paul2013
21st February 2015, 13:49
I can not believe it, HONDA had more than a year to design and test the engine and they had access to merc engines McLaren used last year too!