The 2015 Formula One season is edging ever nearer to its first stage - the Australian Grand Prix on March 15th. With so little time left until Melbourne circuit’s lights turn green, most teams started showcasing the liveries and the sponsors of their 2015 Formula One season single seater turbocharged racing cars.
There were a lot of rumors and anticipation surrounding what Ron Dennis will make of its 2015 effort, baptized MP4-30. Fitted with Honda’s 1.6-liter turbocharged V6 engine - RA615H, the all-new hybrid power unit is a sort of change of heart for the Macca boys. After the Senna-Prost & McLaren-Honda dream team of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Woking-based outfit jumped on the Peugeot bandwagon.
Most notably, the 1994 season McLaren racecar was powered by an uncompetitive Peugeot V10 mill, which saw Hakkinen, Martin Brundle and Philippe Alliot run at the back of the pack all season long. 0 wins, 0 poles, 0 fastest laps out of 16 races. That bad.
McLaren switched to Mercedes-Benz engines for the 1995 MP4/10. However, the Brits had to wait until the MP4/12 came in 1997 to see the Mercedes-Benz V10 mill become properly competitive.
After winning the Constructors’ Championship in ’98, McLaren only managed to repeat that only in the Drivers’ Championship first in ’99 and, most recently, in 2008 via Lewis Hamilton. Since then, nothing happened with McLaren but disappointing results. With Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso now in the Honda-powered Formula 1 team, fingers crossed reliability won’t be a big issue for the British team.
It’s funny that while fans were waiting for a return of the iconic Marlboro McLaren Honda white and red livery, McLaren made the MP4/30 silver and red as ever before. As such, Twitter was flooded with messages like “WTF, McLaren?” or “Is it Mercedes powered?” and many other tongue-in-cheek statements.
As for Hamilton and Rosberg’s 2015 Mercedes-AMG W06 Hybrid, not much has changed in terms of livery over the 2014 car. Whether the Honda-powered McLaren team will be able to put pressure on the Mercedes-AMG boys, only time and reliability will tell...
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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