The Woking team is waiting to see what Honda can do in the next couple of months and if there is not a significant step forward, a switch to Mercedes in the mid-season could be possible, even if it will cost more than the prize money which could be won. According to our sources Mercedes believes that the McLaren chassis is good and recruiting the team could make life more complicated for Ferrari. At the same time , however, the Stuttgart firm does not want to be seen to be pushing Honda out of the sport. The answer could be for McLaren to announce a switch to Mercedes at the same time (or after) an announcement that Honda has a new relationship with Sauber. We hear that a series of meetings are planned by Mercedes for this week and a decision about McLaren will be made before China.
We have also heard that Honda's Yusuke Hasegawa met secretly with Mercedes's Andy Cowell before Melbourne to discuss whether Mercedes could help Honda to become more competitive, but the fact that Mercedes may now be behind Ferrari means that it will want to concentrate on that far more important battle.
We have also heard that Mercedes has suggested a price of around $37 million to McLaren for a supply of engines this year. This about three times what Williams is paying. Mercedes does not want to repeat the mistake that McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh made in 2009 when he agreed to allow Brawn GP to have access to Mercedes engines - the result of which was Brawn beating McLaren in the World Championship, which convinced Mercedes to buy Brawn and end the relationship with McLaren.
Sauber is in a very different situation to McLaren and is running 2016-spec Ferrari engines because it has planned to use this season as a time to consolidate. The demise of Manor means that Sauber is under no threat of losing prize money, as there are only 10 teams in F1 and so the Swiss team has guaranteed prize money for at least another two or three years. Honda may not be in a very good situation at the moment, but there is a desire to improve. Sauber has nothing to lose, and much to gain, by switching engines, because it will no longer have to pay Ferrari, will gain money from Honda and if the team finishes 10th it will be no different to the expectations as a Ferrari customer. Any improvement from Honda could thus move Sauber up the F1 ladder as a factory-backed team, something it has wanted to be since the departure of BMW from the sport back in 2009. It is a gamble, but it does mean that Sauber's future will be solid at least until the new engine formula begins in 2021.
Can Honda rise to the challenge? It is clear that people at McLaren have concluded that the Japanese firm needs a change in attitude to begin to function like a Formula 1 operation, the result of a risk-averse corporate mentality in Japan. This is a theme that McLaren's Eric Boullier has mentioned in his remarks about the McLaren-Honda partnership. Honda was built by the maverick Soichiro Honda and the men who followed him embraced his philosophies, but it has been a long time since they disappeared and Honda has drifted towards mediocrity. Last year CEO Takahiro Hachigo admitted publicly that the company needs to change and rekindle its pioneering spirit.
"We recognize the need for a fundamental transformation," he said, when announcing plans to prioritize quality over quantity.
A switch to Mercedes will cost McLaren, but if that brings better results between now and 2020, when the new engine rules are introduced - and there is a chance of new manufacturers arriving in F1 - it is probably a risk that the team feels it must take - if it has lost faith in Honda. It should be remembered that the McLaren-Honda deal was announced in 2013, with the partnership beginning in 2015. At the time, however, Honda wanted more time but McLaren was keen to get rid of its Mercedes engines and so pushed Honda to enter earlier than it wanted to.
Source : JSNL
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