“Finishing is a small victory“

Albert Park, Sunday March 15

JENSON BUTTON, MP4-30-01

“Today has been a good day.

“We’re still a long way off, but this is a good starting point – and I enjoyed the race. I even had a good little battle with Checo [Perez]. Today also really helps in terms of development: if we’d done three laps, we’d have learned nothing, so we’ve learned a massive amount by completing a race distance.

“It was also a good opportunity for me to get used to the car and to play around with it, making adjustments in the cockpit. There’s a lot of work still needed – on power, driveability, downforce and set-up – but we can make big strides. And, by improving one area, it tends to snowball; more and more areas start to improve, too.

“There were more positives: we’re as quick as the Force Indias in the corners, and we look similar in speed through the corners to the Red Bulls and Saubers, too.

“It’s been a tough winter – our longest run in testing was just 12 laps, so today’s 58-lap run was a good step forward – but we know we’ve got a lot of work to do. But, with all of today’s learning, there are many areas we can improve for the next race.”

KEVIN MAGNUSSEN MP4-30-03

“Today was frustrating for me – I really wanted to race the car – but it’s been good to get out here this weekend. I’ve really enjoyed it. 

“Even though I couldn’t make the start, the team can learn something from my car’s problem. And we can take positives from Jenson finishing the race, too – we came here to learn, and that’s what we did. Finishing is a small victory for the team – I don’t think we expected to be able to do that.

“Now we can get a car to the finish line, we can start to accelerate our learning. We got 56 valuable laps under our belts today, and that’s a great way for McLaren and Honda to start our journey together.”

ERIC BOULLIER – Racing director, McLaren-Honda

“After a tremendously difficult weekend, it’s not easy to find positives, but in fact there are some.

“First and foremost, we’re pleased that Jenson’s car was able to finish the race. He drove extremely well, keeping Checo behind him very adroitly for many laps, and garnering us a great deal of useful data in completing 56 laps.

“Having said that, he was lapped not once but twice by the race winner, Lewis [Hamilton], and we know we have a mountain to climb as far as performance is concerned. Nonetheless, our corner speeds were pretty decent, and there’s definitely untapped potential in MP4-30 that both Honda and ourselves can unlock.

“As for Kevin, he was very unlucky to have his race ended by an as-yet-unspecified power unit glitch before it had even begun.

“Last but very far from least, I want to thank and pay tribute to our mechanics, who’ve worked hard, day after day. They’re unsung heroes, every one of them, which is why I want to take this opportunity to sing their praises in no uncertain terms.

“In two weeks’ time we’ll be racing in Sepang [Malaysia], where the weather is bound to be extremely hot and humid. I’m not going to be rash enough to predict a form upswing in so short a time frame, but we’ll be working flat-out between now and then to make performance and reliability gains in any and every way we can, of that you may be 100 per cent certain.”

YASUHISA ARAI Honda R&D senior managing officer – chief officer of motorsport

“The fact that Jenson was able to finish the race was a significant step forward for the whole team. Equally, today’s performance clearly displays the task that lies ahead of us to reach our objectives of achieving full competitiveness.

“This was an important race for Kevin, and we feel deeply for him. It’s a great pity that we weren’t able to provide him with a driveable power unit for the race. We still need to fully investigate the source of Kevin’s problem, and we won’t be able to look into it until the car comes back to us and we’re able to take off the engine cover.

 “We now turn our attention to Malaysia – racing in such a hot and humid environment will not be easy, and our main objectives will be to tackle heat-mapping and taking a step forward with a more competitive data setting.”

With the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on us, we look at what’s new in Formula 1 in 2015. 

Honda’s return

The most exciting change for 2015? A historic partnership – one that won 15 out of 16 races in 1988 and took four drivers’ and constructors’ championships between 1988 and 1992 – has been reborn. Honda has returned to Formula 1 with McLaren to meet the technical challenges of a thrilling new hybrid-powered era. 

Minimum weight

Since F1’s minimum-weight rule applies to the combined weight of car and driver, neither has room for excess ballast. The challenge of designing competitively light cars with the new hybrid power units came under the spotlight last year, when several drivers complained that they’d had to lose an unhealthy amount of weight to compensate. For 2014 the minimum total weight of the car and driver has been raised from 691kg to 702kg, so the era of extreme dieting has come to an end.  

Nose jobs

Low noses were brought in for safety reasons in 2014, but with this being an aerodynamically sensitive area the result was some quite ugly-looking designs as teams tried to minimise the effect on air flow. For 2015 the wording of the rules has been tightened so that the noses look better.

Power unit numbers

Each driver is allowed just four complete power units for the whole season, down from five in 2014 – and the penalties for going over the limit have changed slightly. While drivers will still be hit with a grid penalty for going beyond the limit, they will no longer be carried over to the next race if the driver cannot take the full penalty (for instance, if given a 10-place penalty when there are fewer than 10 positions behind them on the grid). Instead, they will be given time penalties for the race that increase on a sliding scale.

Power unit development

Thanks to a loophole in the rules, power unit manufacturers can now make changes to their designs during the season. The original intention was for this to be banned, but no cut-off date was written into the rules.

Development is still limited, though: while 92 per cent of the power unit can be changed, this is governed by a system of ‘tokens’. Working like a fantasy league game, this system rates each part of the power unit according to its effect on performance, and each team has an annual ‘budget’ of just 32 tokens it can ‘spend’ on making changes. In practice this works out at 48 per cent of the total that’s open to development.

Double points

Although it ultimately made no difference to the outcome of the championship, a new rule applying double points to the final race of the year proved unpopular with fans and entrants alike in 2014. This rule has now been dropped.

Independent suspension

So-called FRIC (front-rear interconnected) suspension systems, which brought a number of performance advantages, have been banned. The rules now say that a car’s suspension can only respond to direct load on the appropriate end of the car.

Side impact

In recent years the cars have had Zylon anti-intrusion panels bonded in to the cockpit sides to prevent injury in ‘t-bone’ accidents. These have now been extended vertically to the area of the cockpit opening by the driver’s head.

Ratios rationed

Once upon a time, teams could change the ratios in the gearbox at every race (if they had the time). For 2014 just one set of gear ratios had to be chosen for the entire year, with one ‘joker’ change permitted during the season. Now even that allowance has gone, so the gear ratios nominated for Melbourne will have to be competitive at every grand prix of the year. 

New faces

Along with double world champion Fernando Alonso returning to McLaren to partner Jenson Button, four-time champion Sebastian Vettel moves to Ferrari and Marcus Ericsson joins Sauber. Daniil Kvyat slots in to Vettel’s former seat at Red Bull, while Formula 1 also welcomes some exciting new talent in the form of Red Bull Juniors Max Verstappen (third in European Formula 3 last year) and Carlos Sainz Jr (Formula Renault 3.5 champion), and Felipe Nasr (third in GP2). Ferrari also have a new team principal, Maurizio Arrivabene, and Lotus have swapped from Renault to Mercedes power.

Virtual safety car

In response to Jules Bianchi’s accident at Suzuka last year, the FIA has introduced a new system to reduce car speeds in danger zones. In situations where double-waved yellow flags are needed in a particular area of the track, but conditions elsewhere do not require the safety car to be deployed, a speed limit will be enforced in the ‘virtual safety car’ (VSC) caution area.

Less testing

The number of in-season test sessions has been reduced from four to two. They will take place on the Tuesdays and Wednesdays following the Spanish and Austrian Grands Prix, and each team must field ‘rookie’ drivers (ones with fewer than two F1 starts) on two of the four days of running.

Restarts still roll

The plan to make the field halt on the grid and run through the start procedure again after safety car periods has been abandoned.

Mexican wave

After an absence of more than two decades, the Mexican Grand Prix returns to the F1 calendar in 2014 at the same venue, the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Located in downtown Mexico City, the circuit has had to be redeveloped to suit modern safety and infrastructure standards. Unfortunately that also means the loss of its iconic final corner, the Peraltada, where Ayrton Senna flipped his MP4/6 during qualifying for the 1991 Mexican GP. With only a tiny run-off area and then a concrete wall with a busy multi-lane highway on the other side, there was no way of making it safer.

“Tomorrow will be a tough day, but we’ll do our absolute best”

Albert Park, Saturday March 14

JENSON BUTTON, MP4-30-01

“This level of performance wasn’t a surprise for us: we knew from winter testing that the pace wasn’t there, so we knew we weren’t going to be competitive here.

“However, there’s a good feeling about the car – I know we’re so far off, but the basic car is there beneath me, and we’re adding to our experience and learning with every lap we do.

“And that’s really impressed me – we’ve gone through our first race weekend together, and we’ve managed to solve each issue that’s confronted us. There’s just a lot of work needed to add power and downforce – but this is an important car for the future of McLaren-Honda.

“It’s going to be a really difficult race for us – we haven’t done a race distance yet, and my longest run is 12 laps – but we want to do the best we can because there’s so much learning to be had.

“It’ll be a tough day, but we’ll be doing our absolute best.”

KEVIN MAGNUSSEN, MP4-30-03

“Things were going well on my first run in Q1. Then, on my second run, I had a slight problem with the engine – it didn’t really matter, as we’d have needed a bit of luck to get into Q2.

“For tomorrow’s race, we’re not really focused on getting points – they’re not really on the cards for us – but we’ll go racing tomorrow to try and learn. We haven’t done a full race distance yet, so progress tomorrow will be important. If we can finish, we’ll learn a lot; and, even if we don’t, there’ll still be something useful to take home.

“This isn’t where we want to be, but we’re not ready to win races yet. We’ll put our heads down and keep learning, and we’ll try and take as much experience and knowledge from the race tomorrow as we can.”

ERIC BOULLIER – Racing director, McLaren-Honda

“I need hardly say that everyone at McLaren-Honda is enormously dissatisfied with today’s qualifying result.

“We’ve got a mountain to climb, but all I can say is: climb that mountain we certainly will. 

“McLaren exists to win. That ambition burns as brightly now as ever it has. Equally, racing is ingrained in Honda’s corporate culture. Throughout its history, on two wheels and four, Honda has raced and won at the very highest levels. And the bespoke new racing R&D facility at Sakura is state-of-the-art.

“So Honda will do whatever is required to win, and so will McLaren. And win, eventually, we definitely will.”

YASUHISA ARAI – Honda R&D senior managing officer – chief officer of motorsport

“First of all, I must thank both drivers for maintaining their faith and determination – we’re not where we want to be, but their input and positivity are really helping the whole team push forward. 

“Unfortunately, today’s higher temperatures didn’t help the conservative data mapping settings that we chose to run this weekend. From the outset, we took the decision not to gamble any engines away in the opening race, so there’ll be more to come from us.

“McLaren and Honda have come a long way together since the beginning of this project, but we still have a long way to go. However, I’m sure that we’ll continue to make progress – and that first step starts in the race tomorrow.” 

ExxonMobil expands relationship with McLaren-Honda Formula 1 team to showcase fuels contribution 

• Company adds its Esso, Exxon and Mobil retail fuels brands to its sponsorship of the McLaren-Honda Formula 1 team
• Agreement reflects growing importance of fuel technology in race performance
• ExxonMobil has partnered with McLaren for more than two decades

ExxonMobil is expanding its technology partnership with the McLaren-Honda Formula 1 team to incorporate its retail fuels brands, Esso, Exxon and Mobil, alongside Mobil 1 – the world’s leading synthetic motor oil.

ExxonMobil has enjoyed a long association with the McLaren team, as an official technology partner providing high-performance race fuel lubricants since 1995. In 2014, the Esso logo was featured on the car during select races in celebration of ExxonMobil and McLaren’s 20-year relationship. The 2015 season will see ExxonMobil fuels branding showcased on the MP4-30 car throughout the season.

ExxonMobil’s decision to showcase its fuels follows a recent regulatory change in Formula 1 racing. Introduced in 2014, the new fuel-limited formula means that fuel will play an even more critical role in car performance. The technical team responsible for the development of this season’s fuel has been working closely with Honda to optimise product performance for the MP4-30 since late 2013.

ExxonMobil race fuel is developed in the same technology centre in Paulsboro, NJ, USA as the company’s advanced retail fuels formulations, and shares similar properties. It is this culture of leading innovation from race to road that continues to help deliver better fuel economy to customers, now and in the future.

“We are proud to have been official technology partners to the McLaren Formula 1 team for more than two decades,” said Alan Kelly, president, ExxonMobil Fuels and Lubricants Company. “In addition to providing full-time laboratory and trackside engineering support, we have been the exclusive fuel supplier since the beginning of the relationship.

“With Honda on-board as the new engine partner for 2015, and highly-experienced world champions Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso at the wheel, capably supported by test and reserve driver Kevin Magnussen, we are all focused on winning races. The addition of our fuels brands will provide us an opportunity to promote our Esso-, Exxon- and Mobil-branded fuel offerings to consumers this coming year,” he added.

Ron Dennis, Chairman and CEO, McLaren Technology Group, agrees: “ExxonMobil technology and expertise has proven vital to race-winning performance throughout our relationship. The team has worked extremely hard to optimise fuel and lubricant products around the Honda power unit. Extracting more power and fuel efficiency is a key focus, we are delighted to recognise ExxonMobil’s fuels technology contributions during the past two decades by welcoming the fuels side of the business as an official partner. Fans will now be able to appreciate that contribution too with both ExxonMobil’s lubricants brand – Mobil 1, and its retail fuels brands – Exxon, Mobil and Esso – on show.”                                     

About ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil, the largest publicly traded international oil and gas company, uses technology and innovation to help meet the world’s growing energy needs. ExxonMobil holds an industry-leading inventory of resources, is the largest refiner and marketer of petroleum products, and its chemical company is one of the largest in the world. Follow ExxonMobil on Twitter at http://ift.tt/1mjRL03.

About Exxon, Esso and Mobil Fuels

Worldwide, ExxonMobil markets its retail fuels under three brands: Exxon, Esso and Mobil. More than eight million drivers choose to purchase their fuel from one of nearly 25,000 branded service stations in more than 30 countries around the world. ExxonMobil’s advanced fuels technology has been developed to help drivers, both on the road and on the track, and helps keep their engines running more smoothly and while delivering enhanced engine performance. Working with trusted business partners and branded wholesalers, ExxonMobil strives to provide a superior purchase experience including providing innovative loyalty and rewards programs, consumer and commercial credit cards, gift cards, Fuel Finder, Speedpass touchless payment and more. For more information, visit: www.esso.com or www.exxon.com.

About Mobil 1

The world’s leading synthetic motor oil brand, Mobil 1 features anti-wear technology that provides performance beyond our conventional motor oils. This technology allows Mobil 1 to meet or exceed the toughest standards of car builders and to provide exceptional protection against engine wear, under normal or even some of the most extreme conditions. Mobil 1 flows quickly in extreme temperatures to protect critical engine parts and is designed to maximize engine performance and help extend engine life. Mobil 1 fields a team of scientists and trackside engineers who develop innovative products and support motorsport partnerships in Grand Prix racing, NASCAR, LMS, United TUDOR SportsCar Championship, WTCC, FIA GT and SuperV8 racing series. For more information, visit mobil1.com and http://ift.tt/O3AoQK.