Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

McLaren ‘expecting points, at least’ in Barcelona

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says McLaren should be expecting “at least” a point-scoring finish in the Spanish Grand Prix next weekend.

Having struggled for mileage during pre-season testing, McLaren had to run its Honda power unit in a conservative state in Australia just to finish the race with one car. Malaysia saw both cars retire, but Fernando Alonso finished 11th in Bahrain as the team showed consistent improvement. Boullier admits the result in Bahrain was a fair reflection of the car’s pace at this stage of the season, but a major update in Spain should move it much further up the grid.

“We don’t have enough performance yet, that’s it,” Boullier said. “There is an engine performance deficit. In a straight line you can see the top speed is not there yet but it’s coming, step-by-step.

“If the promised engine performance and chassis performance - both packages - are delivering what we are told, if I trust the [Bahrain] result we should be expecting points, at least.”

And Boullier says McLaren’s rate of improvement has been helped by a progress in the relationship with Honda.

“Clearly the understanding of our needs is starting to be understood by them. The expectations we have and they have are starting to match, which is good.”

Click here for a look at the radical Honda power unit design

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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.