Fernando Alonso says a gain of two and a half seconds is "realistic" for McLaren to target next season.
McLaren has been off the pace at a number of circuits but slowly improved its competitiveness as Honda has updated its power unit. Ahead of racing a new specification of engine at this weekend's United States Grand Prix, Alonso says ambitious targets are achievable over the winter.
Asked how big a step McLaren needs to make in order to know it is going in the right direction next season, Alonso replied: "Two and a half seconds.
"If we improve two and a half seconds we will win next year.
Asked if that was a realistic target, Alonso insisted: "Yes, I think so.
"It’s realistic but the thing is that we need to work very hard with a very high discipline all winter and all united because in this new Formula One everything is a package. It’s not anymore engine, aerodynamic, mechanical side, it’s all combined that makes the perfect car. So we are working on that, we understood that, and we are trying our best.
"It’s a very big gap that we have to close, also we need to improve a lot the reliability side because obviously we cannot forget that we’ve used 11 engines so far so this is something that we cannot afford next year. So many things to put in place but all the steps and all the actions that the team are taking in the last couple of months are logical and are quite good and I’m positive.
"Winning is another step. Winning is beating Mercedes and right now even very big teams with things more or less in place they cannot do it, so for us it would be a huge task to do it but we are ready to try at least."
And Alonso believes Honda shares his belief, but admits he has not had any guarantees from the power unit supplier.
"They are working. They don’t promise anything because as I said we have many things to put in place first and to assess. But I think they are very optimistic about the results of next year’s engine and the philosophy, the steps that are in this spec 4 engine.
"New ideas are coming, all the information they have from this year because I think they learned many, many things that they didn’t expect; from the dyno, from the theoretical part, trackside is very different. So I think the steps that we can do are much bigger than any other team because they are more or less in a situation that they knew already and they know perfectly. For us every lap is new information that we’re learning and that we’re taking in to account for next year."
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