“McLaren was licking its wounds last week after a disastrous performance at the Brazilian Grand Prix. Ayrton Senna, Gerhard Berger and Jonathan Palmer will all test new MP4/7As at Silverstone in a bid to catch Nigel Mansell’s flying Williams,” we said. reported to us after the car’s first Formula 1 outing.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? And as with the McLaren MCL36 which looked out of pace at the start of the 2022 season, the Woking team could put at least some blame on their engine supplier – now Mercedes-AMG but 30 years ago Honda.
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“The new RA122E/B is a low-end 75-degree V12. With all of its fittings inside the V and its exhaust manifolds hugging the side of the block, it was designed with aerodynamics in mind. But despite the variable-length intake trumpets, pneumatic valve actuation and fast-burning intake ports derived from road cars, both Senna and Berger said the engine lacked top-end power.
Some have estimated it to be 70 hp less than Williams’ Renault V10. Progress was made and the car won five races, but it was a hard fall after four years of dominance.
Honda left F1 after 1992 to focus on Indycar in the United States, and McLaren did not win another title until 1998.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-04-15 04:01:23
