F1 mid-season match up - Part 5 The Odd couple: McLaren vs Manor

For the last in our mini-series of mid-season assessments of teams and drivers, we have two teams from opposite ends of the spectrum of size and resource, but who end the first half of the season in 9th and 10th places in the Constructors' Championship table.

Here we look at the performances of McLaren Honda and Manor Marussia.

McLaren vs Manor: Overview

In the 2014 Abu Dhabi end of year test, McLaren prepared to run a Honda engine for the first time since 1992. But, despite the success the two companies had enjoyed in the last turbo era, a fact they were both keen to highlight, the team could not get the car to run for longer than a few laps because of electrical problems. That poor reliability plagued the team’s winter testing and left its drivers seriously short of running. Jenson Button managed to make it to the end of the Australian Grand Prix despite a big power deficit, while Fernando Alonso missed the race as he recovered from a mysterious crash in the second winter test. The Honda engine has slowly improved in the second quarter of 2015, but the bad reliability and poor pace continues, leaving McLaren, a team steeped in history and success, languishing down the field.

Manor-Marussia, the full title the team uses to claim the prize money it won thanks to finishing ninth in the constructor’s championship last year despite no longer having any formal links to Marussia, are once again Formula 1’s backmarkers. The team was granted special dispensation to run a 2014 car (and 2014 Ferrari engine) with an updated front crash structure to boost the number of teams on the grid – a decision which angered other small squads that had eyed Manor’s 2014 prize money to boost their own finances. Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi regularly finish several laps adrift and there seems little chance they will get the opportunity to repeat Jules Bianchi’s heroics of Monaco 2014 and score any more points for the minnow outfit.

Drivers:

Alonso’s 2015 season got off to a bumpy start when he crashed heavily in winter testing and had to be airlifted to hospital. He missed the final Barcelona test and sat out the Australian Grand Prix where Kevin Magnussen took his place – although the young Dane did not start as his Honda engine failed before the race. Alonso denied McLaren’s story that nothing had broken on the car and rumours persisted that he fainted at the wheel – a claim he was quick to deny. Overheating issues meant he retired from his first race in Malaysia, although he did make it to the chequered flag in China and Bahrain. More retirements followed in Spain, Monaco, Canada and Austria – the Monaco incident came during a rare race his was running in the points and he was unlucky to be caught up in Kimi Raikkonen’s accident at the Red Bull Ring. He scored his first point of the year with tenth at Silverstone – despite a first lap clash with Button – and finished in fifth in the chaotic race in Budapest. That result means he went in the summer break on a high but his frustration at McLaren’s problems has been bubbling under the surface all year leading to an outburst over the radio during the Canadian Grand Prix when the team told him to save fuel.

Button gained much praise for the way he drove his underpowered car to eleventh place in Australia and the high attrition at that race meant he came close to scoring an unlikely point. Since then he has suffered the lion’s share of Honda’s reliability woes, missed qualifying twice as a result and could not start in Bahrain. He also made an uncharacteristic error by running into the back of Pastor Maldonado during the closing stages of the Chinese Grand Prix. Button did score McLaren’s first points of the year with an eighth place at Monaco, a track that hid the team’s engine deficit, but he then retired from the next three races – including being taken out of his home race at Silverstone by a spinning Alonso on lap 1. He also got into the points in Hungary but missed the chance to score more when his tyres went off and he tumbled down the order. Button does have the better finishing record, 5-3, over Alonso, but the Spaniard has the edge in qualifying at 4-3.

Merhi made his F1 debut in Malaysia after both Manors’ failed to qualify in Australia and he has finished every race except the Canadian Grand Prix. Despite having a better record in junior formula racing than his teammate, Merhi couldn’t get on terms with Stevens in the opening races. Since Manor brought some updates to its car at Silverstone he has been quicker than his British teammate and sits higher in the standings thanks to his twelfth place at that race.

Stevens had more running than Merhi thanks to his race and test for Caterham at the end of the 2014 season and the Briton was the quicker Manor driver for most of the first half of the season. In the last few races he has been playing catch up to Merhi and spun at Silverstone – a day where points were a rare possibility for the Manor squad.

JA on F1 Verdict

Alonso – 6.5

Button – 6

Merhi – 4

Stevens – 5

Prospects for the rest of the season:

On Monday, here on JA on F1, we will publish an analysis graph of the F1 teams and it shows that McLaren Honda are making the most progress relative to the field. But is it enough? Honda is promising a significant upgrade to its engine ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix and if it bumps McLaren up the order that will please Alonso. However, he is struggling to disguise his frustration at the team’s struggles and it won’t help that Sebastien Vettel has won twice in the Ferrari he vacated last year. McLaren have repeatedly stated he has a multi-year contract; will he see it out?

Button has stayed smiling all season despite Honda’s unreliability, but a year languishing at the back of the pack is not befitting such an experienced and popular driver, especially considering the battle he had just to keep his McLaren seat last year. He also has a multi-year deal with the team but calls for him to bow out on his own terms this year will get louder if McLaren continue to struggle in the second half of the season.

Merhi will be looking to continue his strong recent form and will want to overturn Stevens’ 5-3 qualifying advantage in the second half of the year. The Spaniard is also competing in Formula Renault 3.5 this year and he was rumoured to be on a temporary contract with Manor at the start of the season, but it seems unlikely the team will drop him at this stage.

Stevens will want to recover his position ahead of his teammate and put on a strong show over the second half of the season. There is no guarantee Manor will be on the grid next season and Stevens needs to demonstrate his capabilities on the big stage while he can.

Teams:

McLaren have been unrecognisable so far this season and it’s certainly a world away from its heyday with Honda in the 1980s. Although Alonso made it into the points at Silverstone, McLaren’s performance there was abject and its poor form highlights what a shame it is not too have its two great champions involved in the fight at the front. For the Silverstone crowd, for example to pay their money to see Alonso and Button incapable of competing, was a waste all round. The team has repeatedly said its chassis is one of the best in the field, but there has been no real evidence of that so far this year. It looks a reasonable, rather than a class-leading chassis. Admittedly the engine deficit means it cannot show the true aerodynamic potential of the chassis but it would have made more sense to invest in making its engine perform better than chase aero performance it can’t use.

Manor’s inclusion in the 2015 world championship has been controversial. The team is getting by on the prize money it won last season and whatever sponsorship it can bring in, which seems to be growing, but the new owners don’t appear to have invested much of their own money in the team, if any. Other small F1 outfits were unhappy Manor allowed to start the championship as they could have bolstered their own finances with a share of Manor’s US$50m prize money. Under F1 commercial rules, the team will get the same cash payout for the next two seasons if it can keep going, so it may yet stay afloat. But it will take investment to reduce the yawning performance gap to the rest of the field.

JA on F1 Verdict

McLaren – 5

Manor – 4.5

Prospects for the rest of the season:

McLaren will be pinning all its hopes on Honda improving its engines from Spa onwards. The team has been confident it could be on the podium before the year is out but that seems optimistic at best. If the engine does not improve, McLaren will have to switch its attention to 2016 and avoiding another year in the F1 doldrums.

Manor are doomed to another half year at the back of the pack and will have to hope that there are more races with few finishers if they are to score an unlikely point or two.