McLaren says “last-minute” engine change didn’t compromise its new car

McLaren says it didn’t have to make any fundamental changes to the design of its MCL33 to accept a Renault engine instead of a Honda, despite the two having substantially different designs.

The team announced its change of engine supplier last September – a decision it says couldn’t have been left any later.

The team’s chief technical officer Tim Goss said the “disturbance of a significant engine change thrown in quite last-minute” was “probably been the main thing that has meant it’s been a little bit out of the ordinary this time around.”

“We didn’t known whether it was coming or not,” he explained. “There was a lot of uncertainty around it.”

The team began preparing to accommodate the Renault design before the deal was confirmed.

“You can do a little bit of preparation work in the background from pictures, from what you know, then you get an idea of what the main changes are that you’re going to have to make,” said Goss.

“So we’d given it come thought but obviously we had no hard data and designs and drawings to go on. As soon as we knew it was happening then it was just everyone, all hands to the pumps, and the design team did a fantastic job of re-configuring the car to take the Renault engine.”

“I think within pretty much two weeks we managed to have everything redesigned and read.”

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The differences between the two power units created challenges for McLaren at this point.

“Architecturally the engines are very different,” said Goss. “You’ve got sort of two families of engines in Formula One at the moment: The Mercedes/Honda approach with the turbocharger split across the engine and compressor at the front, and the Renault/Ferrari approach where you’ve got the turbocharger in the back, so the compressor and turbine at the back and the MGU-H pushed forwards into the Vee.”

“The implication of that when you go from one engine to another are that the intake air instead of going to the front of the engine has got to get to the back of the engine. It has big implications for the back of the chassis. And sitting a turbocharger in a gearbox has big implications for the gearbox and internal rear suspension.

“But we have done a fantastic job in a very short space of time and I don’t believe we’ve given up anything in terms of the fundamental concepts and designs that we’re heading for with this year’s car.”

2018 F1 season

• McLaren staff told us we were “totally crazy” to take Honda engines in 2018 – Tost
• ‘It doesn’t matter if we start last’: How Red Bull’s junior team aided Honda’s leap forward
• Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
• McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
• Ricciardo: Baku “s***show” was Red Bull’s fault

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