Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHonda

McLaren relationship 'much better now' - Honda

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Honda's partnership with McLaren is "much better now" after one year of experience together, according to Yasuhisa Arai.

McLaren suffered a difficult first season with Honda as reliability and performance problems left the team well off the pace at the start of the year. While improvements were seen as the season progressed, McLaren only scored 27 points in total and finished ninth in the constructors' championship.

When it was suggested 2015 had seen the relationship strained at times, Arai told F1i: “I don’t think so.

"We had very good communication from the beginning, from Abu Dhabi last year. We have had tight communication as one team and I feel it has been very good."

And asked about the improvement in the partnership after a year racing together again in F1, Arai replied: “Yes, much better now.

"The start point was a good relationship and we’ve become more tight, with more good communication and good progress. It’s like a scrum, all together. It’s very good.”

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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.