McLaren expect large in season development steps

McLaren will line up in Australia in a bit of an unknown state.

McLaren Honda enjoyed a fairly successful winter testing program, completing thousands of miles and showed a reliable side to their car that was rarely seen in 2015.

This was key for McLaren as actually completing some running enabled them to build on a solid foundation, something the team never had last season.

Unsurprisingly though when playing catch-up, they haven’t quite got as ready as they would have ideally liked.

‘We are a bit behind the programme. So that means we are going to turn up in Australia with more bits on the car, which have unfortunately not been signed off [in Barcelona testing]. But it is what it is.’McLaren racing director Eric Boullier told Sky Sports.

But overall, the winter tests have to be seen as a positive for both McLaren and Honda.

He added: ‘We have been able to run most of the days, which is very good news, In terms of chassis, it’s important that we could go through all the systems, which we couldn’t do last year. So for us it’s a good achievement. Now we have a reliable car, more or less, to start the season – so we are definitely more confident.’

On the engine side, McLaren ran two versions of their 2016 Honda power-unit across the two tests in Barcelona, Honda then pieced together the engine from that work and the final specification has now been homologated.

Honda’s new F1 chief Yusuke Hasegawa said: ‘There will be more to come now, The base looks okay and there will be much more performance in the coming weeks.’

All sounding positive for McLaren, but they talked a good game in the past and failed.

Lets hope for Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button that this year will be better.