McLaren CEO Jonathan Neale says the team is under pressure and "can't really BS" Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button amid its struggles with Honda.
A double retirement in Austria was the second race in succession neither McLaren finished, with both cars reaching the chequered flag on just one occasion this season. With Honda struggling for both performance and reliability, Neale says
"There's a lot going on and in any partnership or any arrangement, when you're under pressure and you are a team that is not performing on the circuit where any of us would like to be at the moment, the key to getting through that is transparency and moving towards the issues as they emerge," Neale told ESPN.
"We're the same with our drivers, the days of being able to put your hand on a driver's shoulder and say 'Trust me, it will be all right' are gone.
"Especially with Fernando and Jenson, they are pretty canny individuals and they know what they are doing, they have been around for a long period of time and you can't really BS them. They believe in what they see and will stay with you as long as you get the results."
And Neale says McLaren has shown enough progress so far this season to back up any predictions of future improvement.
"Closing the gap from five seconds to two seconds since the start of the season, which is huge and is what we have done, gives the driver confidence when we tell him what is coming at the next few races. He can measure us against that past improvement because we either did or didn't get the job done.
"I think Fernando in particular said some very positive things in Austria after a pretty torrid Friday and Saturday. He said he watched the guys in the top three press conference after qualifying [Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel] and they didn't look happy, but he was happy even though he was having the mother of all weekends in the car."
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