Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Boullier wants drivers to be critical of McLaren

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says he wants Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button to be critical of the team when required to help its future direction.

The start to 2015 has been a difficult one for McLaren, with its Honda power unit proving unreliable and the team yet to score a point in the opening four races. While Boullier says the drivers are not getting frustrated with the project, he says it is important for Alonso and Button to voice strong opinions about where the team can improve moving forward.

“I don’t see an issue with motivation with either of them,” Boullier said. “The see and they feel the progress and I guess they both know how immature the project is and where we are going. They already have a view on short-term, medium-term at the end of the year and even now we are starting to talk about next year.

“We want them to buy in to what we are doing but also to be critical of where we are going. It’s good to have different opinions and points of view. They are very motivated, very professional and I am 100% happy.”

However, Boullier was keen to stress he has no complaints about the driver line-up and the way both drivers have been performing this season.

“They are doing a very good job, I am very happy. They clearly extract everything they can from the car, no mistakes, it’s quite impressive to be honest.”

Click here for a look at the brake-by-wire system which caused Mercedes problems in Bahrain

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.