Racing/2015
December 12, 2014 10:35 am

McLaren-Honda F1 ‘Decision’ – Button Stays, Magnussen Backs up, Alonso Keeps Beard

Brendan Baker,administrator

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For the better part of 30 years, Brendan Baker has been involved in the automotive aftermarket and racing industry in some capacity, including the last 11 years at Engine Builder magazine. Brendan’s aftermarket career started in high school working for his father's auto parts store in Akron, Ohio. He has worked many areas of the industry from counterman to technician and earned his certification as a racing mechanic in 1989. He has worked for several racing schools and teams at various levels, including being an owner/driver of a semi-professional racing team. In his free time he enjoys riding his motorcycle and racing go-karts.

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2015 McLaren-Honda announcement (L-R) Yasuhisa Arai, Jenson Button, Kevin Magnussen, Fernando Alonso, Ron Dennis.
2015 McLaren-Honda announcement (L-R) Yasuhisa Arai, Jenson Button, Kevin Magnussen, Fernando Alonso, Ron Dennis.
As one of the most widely-speculated stories of the second half of 2014, McLaren-Honda finally announced its new driver line-up for 2015: Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button. There, that wasn’t so difficult.

Alonso had long been rumored to have inked a deal with his former team from 2007, but the situation with naming a teammate reached near-ridiculous proportions when McLaren and its board presumably could not make up their minds about who should partner with the Spaniard.

As the odd man out in 2015, McLaren says Kevin Magnussen will remain an important part of the team as test and reserve driver. However, should Button thrive in 2015 and stay on for another year, it could be difficult for the Dane to stay on the sidelines another year.

honda-formula-1-2015
The McLaren-Honda MP4/4 was driven to victory by Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in an amazing 15 of the 1988 season’s 16 grands prix.

McLaren says that all three drivers will play crucial roles in re-establishing one of the most iconic unions in sports.  McLaren and Honda have previously teamed up for one of the most dominant partnerships in motorsport history: Honda broke new ground in the 1980s by creating a turbocharged engine that was unparalleled in both its output and its efficiency, and, between 1988 and 1992, McLaren-Honda won eight world championships and 44 grands prix, and took 53 pole positions and set 30 fastest laps, all in just 80 grands prix.

In 1988, the partnership created arguably the single most successful Formula 1 car of all time: the all-conquering McLaren-Honda MP4/4, which was driven to victory by Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in an amazing 15 of the season’s 16 grands prix.

The lure presented by those same goals has once again brought Honda back to the pinnacle of motorsports. Honda, with such a strong background in the previous turbo-era, is developing its revolutionary new turbocharged engine at its all-new purpose-built state-of-the-art motorsport facility in Sakura, Japan.

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