McLaren plan to replace Mercedes with Honda – Formula 1 news
The Formula 1 team, McLaren, have decided to end their contract with Mercedes and return with former engine partners Honda.
Mercedes had started the partnership with McLaren to supply them with car engines back in 1995. The contract had been renewed in 2009 with a chance that the agreement will be continuing until after 2015. The F1 team is now reluctant to pay the £8million
Mercedes is demanding for its engines from the start of next year’s F1 season.
McLaren has plans to leave the Mercedes engines and instead join forces with their former engine partners Honda as a source told The Sun that, “there is no way McLaren will stay as a customer for Mercedes engines.”
Earlier this month, Honda announced that they might be returning to the sport keeping in mind the future technical regulations imposed on the engines.
“On a personal level I love racing, but there is a lot involved when you are in F1 - it is the very top of auto racing and that requires a large commitment,” Honda’s head of research and development Yoshiharu Yamamoto told Auto car. “But it is true that
we do look up at those races and hope that one day we can take part again.”
Honda has been hoping for a future of turbo charged engines in the cars it develops and that suits well with new regulations for the 2014 season which will have the current V8 engines of the F1 cars replaced with turbo charged V6 engines.
Yamamoto also stated that despite Honda’s wishes; personally he thinks it is better to focus on winning World Touring Car Championship first and then going further with their plans about anything else.
The years when the F1 team was dominating the Formula 1 races, they had been using the Honda engines in their cars although Honda decided to quit the F1 community after the season of 2008.
Other possible candidates for McLaren to partner with might be Porsche who have been recently hiring staff for their company having F1 experience. Porsche has also shared world championship success with McLaren in the past.
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