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Alonso pins McLaren's woes squarely on Honda's shoulders

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Fernando Alonso spent more time on the tennis court than driving his ailing McLaren on Friday, with his tilt at the Indy 500 looking ever more inviting after another dark day on the Formula One racetrack. Alonso's home fans had barely settled in their seats for practice at the Spanish Grand Prix before his car's Honda engine blew in a mess of smoke and oil. Liquid then poured out of the car as it was tipped up by a recovery crane. Having failed to start in Russia two weeks ago due to an engine failure on the formation lap, Alonso departed the Barcelona circuit after a few choice words and later posted a picture on Instagram of himself playing tennis. "The engine was not good enough. We came out of the pitlane and there was a hole in the engine, and the oil was streaming out. It blew up after 400 meters," Alonso told reporters after returning for the second 90-minute practice session. He was last on the timesheets and reported that the engine was even slower. If the tennis photo looked like a dig at Honda, accompanied with the seemingly sarcastic comment "keeping the body active", he said that had not been his intention. "I have very little time in these weeks, with traveling, with planes," said the 35-year-old, who will go straight from Barcelona to Indianapolis on Sunday night to prepare for his debut in the 500 on May 28. "So when I discovered that I had two hours free, instead of being on the sofa and watching television, I went for some training. My dedication is still 100 percent to my fitness and my preparation. "It wasn't humor to go outside the circuit to play tennis, it was preparation. People got it wrong. I went out to have some fun and escape the circuit." McLaren, the second most successful team in Formula One history in terms of race wins, have yet to score a point in four rounds of this year's championship and are last in the standings. Honda's Formula One reputation, after two seasons of unreliability and poor performance, is meanwhile being dragged deeper into the mud. Alonso is out of contract at the end of the season and has said his future whereabouts would depend on who could offer him a winning car. "It's not my reputation, it's theirs (Honda's) – and it's their money, and their image," he said. "I try to drive as fast as I can but it's a much bigger problem for them." (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by John Stonestreet) Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party.

McLaren 650S to start at $265,500 in US?

As the McLaren 650S inches towards US dealerships, one of the big questions on our mind is how much the mid-engined supercar will cost. We previously reported that European customers would be shelling out 232,500 Euros, which at the time was the equivalent of $318,000 (today, it's about $320,200). In that piece, we claimed US pricing would probably be well below that number, and thanks to some supposedly leaked intel, it looks like we were correct. DragTimes claims the hardtop 650S will start at $265,500, which actually strikes us as a bit of a bargain for a 641-horsepower, mid-engined super car. It should be noted that the list of optional extras, which is what will really drive up the price of the 650S, doesn't differ from the European options sheet we showed you back in February. That means there's a load of carbon-fiber trim pieces as well as plenty of performance options, like "super-lightweight" forged wheels, a carbon-fiber racing seat and a sport exhaust. Now, all this being said, we'd suggest taking these prices with a grain of salt. The European price leaks were accompanied by a physical price sheet that lent an air of credibility to the initial report - there's no such proof for these prices. We've reached out to McLaren to try and get confirmation on these, and we'll be sure to update this post as soon as we hear anything. Until then, head over to DragTimes for the full rundown, and let us know what you think in Comments. Is $265K a reasonable start price for a 650S? Which options from the price list would be must-haves? Have your say below. Featured Gallery McLaren 650S: Geneva 2014 View 18 Photos News Source: DragTimesImage Credit: Copyright 2014 Drew Phillips / AOL McLaren Coupe Performance pricing mclaren 650s

McLaren's novel MP4-31 suspension revealed

Giorgio Piola and Matt Somerfield analyze the innovative suspension design on McLaren's new MP4-21 Formula 1 car. McLaren has openly talked about there being some 'innovation' on its 2016 Formula 1 car when the first images of the Honda-powered machine emerged on Sunday. And while there were already hints from the launch pictures about an aggressive suspension solution, it was only when the new car hit the track at Barcelona on Monday that such concepts have been confirmed. As Giorgio Piola's exclusive photograph below shows, McLaren has been very bold with its front suspension design - with the upper rear arm much lower than is normal. McLaren MP4-31 detail Photo by: Giorgio Piola It was interesting too that the team had fitted additional sensors on both of the rear arms of the wishbones to help monitor data from this area during the first day of testing. Suspension thinking Rather than an assimilation of the conjoined lower wishbone (see below), pioneered by Mercedes in 2014 and adopted elsewhere, we can see that McLaren is thinking independently. Mercedes AMG F1 Team W07 detail Photo by: Giorgio Piola The front suspension can have a marked effect on how the airflow moves down and around the rest of the car and so the teams have to carefully plan its layout, as it is exceptionally difficult to change once designed. McLaren is clearly searching for previously untapped aerodynamic performance, with the rear profile of each of the wishbone arms placed virtually on top of one another. The upper of the two is slung lower than usual, meaning it should work in unison to pull the airflow down and around the sidepod, rather into or over it. These early tests, with the sensors placed on the wishbones, are used to correlate the on track data with what the team expected when the car was tested both kinematically and aerodynamically in CFD, the wind tunnel and on the seven-post shaker rig. Red Bull push The pitlane launch of the 2016 Red Bull challenger, amongst a frenzy of other machines, means a more detailed analysis of it will follow later. However, one area of interest, like the McLaren, is the front suspension. It has converged on the idea of conjoining the lower wishbone element but, as is usual for Red Bull, it has taken it to extremes, with only a small opening now available at the inboard sections. Of course this is done for its aerodynamic purposes with the large surface area allowing a smoother transition of the airflow.