McLaren drivers getting frustrated?

The patience shown by Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button at McLaren this year had been admirable.

For the 2009 Formula One World Champion Jenson Button, the switch from Mercedes power to Honda power could have been very frustrating.

McLaren have ditched the prize winning power-unit on the grid to develop a brand new competitor.

It is basically seen as giving up the chance for some short term gain for longer term success.

It has always been described as a project, one that two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso also bought into.

The Spaniard and British driver have 47 Grand Prix victories between them, but despite all the problems, they have been on a PR exercise all season and have said all the right things, until recently.

The Belgian Grand Prix was described by Jenson Button as ‘pretty embarrassing’ while Fernando Alonso said it was ‘painful’.

So now it is the turn of McLaren Honda racing director Eric Boullier to put the PR spin on those comments.

‘What I don’t want is for them to get frustrated and not being excited about the challenge, We are being open with them and actually if I can use the drivers to put the right pressure on the right places then it can help the timing to be good.’ he told Sky Sports.

McLaren would ultimately like Honda to invest more in the project. One quick way of doing this would be to employ people from outside of the current Honda structure with experience of Formula One.

But this is something that Honda are not keen to do.

Boullier added: ‘We have to respect the culture. It was a strong position they have and a strong suggestion we have in McLaren, but we have to respect Honda’s decision. Honda have their own map and we just have to make sure their timing is matching our timing.’