Early struggles for McLaren Honda

After two days of winter testing McLaren Honda have completed 33 miles of running.

McLaren ended their long association with Mercedes at the end of 2014, claiming that they could not challenge for future titles as a customer of the German manufacturer and instead heading into a new project with Japanese manufacturer Honda.

Only time will tell if that is the right decision for McLaren over the coming years, but there was always going to be short term pain in the hopes of achieving long term gain.

But McLaren were probably hoping for more than just 12 laps completed in two days, especially when comparing to 2014 Formula One Constructors World Champions Mercedes AMG, who have completed 248 laps and 682 miles.

Both Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button have completed 6 laps each, but the British driver is not overly concerned by the poor start to testing.

?We knew it would take time and I never thought we would come here and pound out the laps, Obviously, it?s not been the best start but we knew this would be difficult. These power units are very complicated but we will get our heads around it.? Button told Sky Sports.

McLaren Honda will be to keen to not suffer the indignity of coming away from Jerez with less running than what Red Bull Racing did last year.

Red Bull and Renault struggled during the early sessions of 2014 completing just 21 laps in four days. McLaren are over half way there to improving upon that record and they’ll be desperate to achieve that as a minimum running.