HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD?
F1 power units are expected to release more heat in 2017 due to longer periods of open throttle. Still, the air intake above the driver’s head remains quite compact on the new McLaren. The British team seems to have gone down the same route as Ferrari in not adopting an oval-shaped design with multiple inlets.
Like on the SF70H, a second opening appears below the main intake and behind the driver’s helmet.
The compact airbox feeds air to Honda’s revamped power unit. The Japanese manufacturer has taken advantage of the tokens system being canned to give its engine a major overhaul.
“We improved every area of the engine that was restricted,” Honda’s head of F1 project Yusuke Hasegawa told Autosport.
“There were areas that we wanted to modify from the original engine to extract more power, and the car was changing dramatically so we wanted to redesign the engine. We have a modified engine, a lower centre of gravity and less weight.”
Placing the compressor and turbine within the ‘Vee’ of the engine meant that both components were undersized, which ended up limiting overall power.
On the RA617H, Honda has followed Mercedes’ split-turbo design with the compressor sitting at the front and the turbine placed at the rear.
The new model would also include pre-chamber technology, which has been reportedly used by Mercedes since 2014 before Ferrari (2015) and Renault (2016) followed suit. Hasegawa has already admitted that the new powertrain represents a ‘high risk’ approach.
Honda’s overhaul has not forced McLaren into compromising the aerodynamics of the MCL32. Since their reunion ahead of the 2015 campaign, both partners have primarily focused on closing the engine gap to Mercedes.
"The architecture that we've worked on suits the whole car,” director of engineering Matt Morris said. “It suits us from an aerodynamic point of view but it also suits Honda from being able to develop performance.
“I don't think there's any secrets about it – I think it's what the other teams have gravitated towards. So I don't think we've made any compromises in terms of from a chassis or a pure performance point of view.”
