Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Boullier: ‘Major breakthrough’ needed to match Alonso target

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McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says the team shares Fernando Alonso’s target of finding 2.5seconds of lap time over the winter, but warns it would need “a major breakthrough” to do so.

During the United States Grand Prix weekend Alonso said it was realistic for McLaren to target a gain of 2.5s ahead of next season, an improvement which he believes would allow the team to fight at the front of the field. While Boullier is aware of how ambitions the target is, he says McLaren will find a similar amount of time if it achieves the goals it has put in place.

“Yes it is ambitious but if we would match all of the targets we have set for ourselves and Honda we could find 2.5seconds, yes,” Boullier said.

“Let’s say the targets we have are for the beginning of the season but it’s very difficult to match and there are a lot of things to homologate on the engine to make sure we can get there. So I expect it’s going to be more in the course of the season. 2.5s is a lot but it is true that you can have a major breakthrough in some areas like the hybrid technology.”

Despite the targets McLaren has set, Boullier is wary the regulations make it harder to close the gap to the front-running teams.

“There are so many restrictions on regulations now that when you compete with the other teams you can’t break through as before and catch up as easily as before. We are limiting with the windtunnel, we are limited with CFD, we are limited everywhere, and obviously the other teams are clever as well. So we have shown some good signs throughout the season that we are catching up, we started so far behind so it’s positive for McLaren.

“In terms of comparison last year we were not as good as we are this year in terms of bringing on-track performance, correlating with the original ideas. That means we have improved ourselves as an organisation but we are limited and restricted everywhere so to catch up is more and more difficult.”

Technical analysis: United States

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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.