Boullier (far right) in talks with Ron Dennis (far left)
Expectations, in Boullier’s view, were far too high.
“Some thought McLaren-Honda would come in and dominate the sport like they did in the 1980s. Others were more realistic, but very few people. I understand why people said Honda joining one year late is an advantage, but the truth is Honda decided to join the sport two years after everyone else. They are still paying the price for having started two years later.”
But how has it gone so badly wrong? Alonso left Ferrari with the express intention of finally winning a third world title. Button clung on but was buoyed by the prospect of fighting at the front again. McLaren have their own issues – after all, they have not won a constructors’ championship since 1998, or a race since Brazil in 2012 – but Honda have patently not lived up to their side of the bargain.
A rival team principal was told by Honda executives last season: “We will have the same power as Mercedes in Australia.” The team were five seconds off the pace. “There were ambitious targets which have been hurt by the reliability,” Boullier concedes.
The Frenchman will not divulge details but slowly the picture of Honda’s shambles has emerged. As late as last October, just months before pre-season testing in Jerez, half of their hi-tech test beds were not running. The Japanese manufacturer has run this as an HR project, rotating staff rather than building up a group of hardened engines. It also refused to poach experts from Mercedes or Ferrari.
It has left McLaren and Honda possibly years apart in their expectations of when they will reach the front. They have done their best to project a ‘one-team’ ethos, but Boullier is upping the ante on Honda to get their act together. “For Honda, if it’s a five-year project, and if they win in year three or four, it’s a successful project. For McLaren, we cannot afford to wait three or four years. We need to win in year one or two.” It is clear that Boullier and Dennis, McLaren’s chairman, are exercising enormous pressure on Honda to recruit some experienced brains. “We put them under pressure to accelerate the timing. Whatever it takes,” Boullier says.
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Despite this continuing, he does not regret the decision to switch Mercedes for Honda. “Definitely it was the right thing to do. You cannot win championships without a works engine. It’s impossible.”
McLaren have struggled for years now
The 41-year-old, like Button, speaks highly of Honda’s potential, once they can get it all together. “We know for a fact that this engine we have in the car now, if we can exploit it 100 per cent, it is not tenths we will gain, it is seconds per lap. Seconds.” Such an ambitious forecast seems way off in the distance. It leaves Boullier in the middle of a complete mess. Thankfully, he says relations with Dennis, a notoriously difficult taskmaster, are good. “It’s getting better actually – the tougher it is the better it is,” he says. Both the drivers have remained calm. Button has been an astonishingly good frontman while Alonso has not (yet) thrown his toys out of the pram.
Keeping hold of both looks a tall order when success – however certain Boullier says it may be – is so elusive.
“He [Alonso] is patient enough to hang around, being quiet, and happy, which is important. But he is not going to stay like this forever, for sure not. We cannot afford to be uncompetitive like this forever.”
And with that frank, honest assessment, Boullier headed back to the McLaren garage to continue the rescue job. The light at the end of the tunnel is incredibly faint.