Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

'Drastic change' convinces Button of McLaren potential

Jenson Button says the "drastic change" he has seen within McLaren convinces him the team will eventually be successful with Honda.

McLaren has endured a tough season so far this year, with the return of Honda as power unit supplier having led to a number of reliability problems and a lack of competitiveness. The situation appeared to be worsening at Monza, where cracks began to show in the McLaren-Honda partnership.

While Button has been coy regarding his own future as McLaren's struggles continue, he says the changes which have been implemented at the team in search of success convince him it will eventually return to winning ways.

"Previous teams that I’ve been with where you can’t see a future, there hasn’t been a future as you have been with a works manufacturer and there hasn’t been change," Button said. "We’ve had drastic change within this team with Honda coming back into F1 and, if you look back at the beginning of the season, in testing we were struggling to do two-lap runs or get out of the garage.

"So we have come a hell of a long way but, from a racing driver’s point of view, you always want more and you always want things to happen quicker. But F1 is such a competitive sport right now, and it is so complex [in terms of] the power unit and also the aerodynamics, we are so limited in what we can do, what we can change, to make the difference during the season is so difficult.

"Can I see light? Yeah, I can see that it is going to improve but none of us here right now know how quickly. We hope that it is going to happen quickly and I know that everyone is working flat-out, at Honda and Woking, and I know that we have had more parts on this car – aerodynamic parts and mechanical parts – than I have ever had in my F1 career and this is with the limit in the regulations, limitation in aerodynamics, but you still don’t know when it is going to turn a corner and when you are going to start winning."

Racing director Eric Boullier said over the Italian Grand Prix weekend McLaren intends to keep hold of Button alongside Fernando Alonso next season.

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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.