The MCL32 made its competitive début at the Australian Grand Prix and marked a change in McLaren's naming convention; it is the first car built by McLaren since the McLaren M30, which contested part of the 1980 season, not to have the "MP4" prefix as part of its chassis name. This change was introduced following CEO Ron Dennis's departure from the team's parent company, the McLaren Technology Group, in November 2016.
The McLaren MCL32 was also notable for being the first Honda-powered Formula One car to utilize a fuel and lubricant supplier other than ExxonMobil since the Honda RA108 in the 2008 season. This change came when Honda began using Elf fuel and ENEOS lubricant products. It was the last McLaren car to be fitted with a Honda engine before being replaced by Renault engines from the 2018 until the 2020 seasons.
The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) amended the technical regulations for the 2017 season, abolishing the token system that had limited engine development over the course of a season since its introduction in 2014. This allowed engine supplier Honda to extensively redesign the team's power unit, which was named the RA617H. Honda moved from the ultra-compact RA615H concept to a configuration similar to that first used by Mercedes in their PU106 series of engines. Honda's Formula One project manager, Yusuke Hasegawa, described the new architecture for the RA617H as "very high risk," justifying the choice as the only way to catch up to Mercedes.
Hasegawa admitted that the technology implemented into the design, particularly around the combustion concept, was not entirely understood and that its potential would take time to fully realise. During the season, issues with the engine were attributed to Honda's inability to recreate racing conditions during dyno testing, underestimating the increased stresses placed on the engine due to the revised technical regulations, and severe vibrations affecting the transmission and oil tank.
Following the Australian Grand Prix, Honda announced that they had addressed the majority of the issues that plagued them, although the engine had been detuned and the gearbox shift times increased to maintain reliability. A heavily revised "B-specification" engine was in development and would be ready in as little as eight weeks.
At the Spanish Grand Prix, Honda introduced updates to the power unit, including a revised intake system and mapping, which reduced drive train vibrations and provided a small increase in power. Despite these improvements, reliability issues persisted.
Prior to the start of the season, McLaren secured technical partnerships with BP to provide fuel and Castrol to provide engine lubricants for the RA617H, ending their contract with ExxonMobil.
The MCL32 was the first McLaren car to utilize Castrol motor oil and other fluid products since the M30 in 1980.
McLaren endured a difficult pre-season during testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, similar to their experience in 2015. The new RA617H power unit, which had a completely overhauled concept compared to the previous seasons, was found to be unreliable. This interrupted the team's preparations and prevented them from achieving consistent running. Fernando Alonso was particularly critical of the engine, citing lack of reliability and power. The team completed only 425 laps in the eight days of testing, compared to Mercedes, who completed over one thousand laps in the same period.
The team had a difficult start to the season. Alonso retired from 10th with bodywork damage at the Australian Grand Prix, while Vandoorne finished 13th despite having dashboard damage. At the Chinese Grand Prix, Alonso had a good start, jumping up to 6th, before retiring with a driveshaft failure. Vandoorne retired with fuel system issues.
At the Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso qualified 7th but finished 12th, while Vandoorne retired after an accident. Jenson Button returned for a one-off in Monaco, replacing Alonso who was racing in the Indy 500. Button qualified 9th and Vandoorne 10th, but both crashed in the race.
The team faced various challenges throughout the season, including reliability issues and difficulties in finding the optimal setup. Despite these challenges, they managed to score points, with Alonso finishing 9th at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and Vandoorne picking up his first point of the season with 10th in Hungary.
The season ended relatively positively, with the team scoring the seventh most points in the last 12 races. However, their early season struggles meant they finished ninth in the Constructors' Championship with 30 points.
(key) (results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)
The information presented is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted.
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