2017 review: McLaren reaches the end of the road with Honda

©McLaren

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F1i looks back over the whole of the 2017 Formula 1 world championship season team-by-team and driver-by-driver.

McLaren

There can be few Formula 1 fans who don't look upon McLaren's current plight and shake their heads in despair. No one likes to see one of the greatest names in the history of the sport reduced to such depths.

The heart of the problem has been the team's imploding relationship with engine suppliers Honda. The Japanese manufacturer simply couldn't seem to provide McLaren with the power and reliability needed to challenge their rivals. Over the course of the year, McLaren incurred a total of 873 grid penalties from excessive power unit element changes.

However, eventually there were signs of slow and steady improvement. McLaren picked up 28 of its total of 30 championship points from Hungary onwards. But it was too little and too late: McLaren negotiated a complex deal to offload Honda onto Toro Rosso for 2018 and get a supply of Renault engines in return.

At least it was enough to restore Fernando Alonso's spirits, and he finished his year with three back-to-back top ten finishes. If these green shoots of recovery had shown up sooner, perhaps things with Honda might have gone very differently.

Read on: Fernando Alonso

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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.