Eric Boullier says McLaren should not celebrate its double points finish in the Monaco Grand Prix because it has much bigger ambitions.
McLaren arrived in Monaco with high expectations but found its car did not work as well as hoped due to an inherent lack of dirty downforce - which creates more drag - an approach which has been necessary to compensate for its power unit deficit.
Despite the car's disappointing pace, Fernando Alonso still managed to secure fifth place with a good strategy while Jenson Button was ninth, but Boullier says taking advantage of a rain-affected race is the minimum he expects from the team.
“No, not celebrating," Boullier said. "We just did the job, we have good drivers, this is a good team, we delivered the strategy so it is a good reward for the guys and the drivers as well because I think Fernando and Jenson both enjoyed the race. But McLaren’s ambition is to win, so obviously we’re not very excited. We should not say this because we need to be happy, but…”
When it was put to Boullier that the way Alonso held off Nico Rosberg was encouraging, the racing director replied: “No, you’re not going to find anything to make me happy!
"It’s a good result for the team, good to get the points and to have taken your opportunities but this is the least you expect from us, so I’m not excited by this. We need to keep working, we were expecting to be a bit more competitive [in Monaco], we were not, we know why now. That’s it, we just need to keep working, Monaco is a one-off."
With Alonso crossing the line 50 seconds behind fourth-placed Sebastian Vettel, Boullier also warned the final gap to Ferrari was not representative either.
“Not only that though, you have to be careful because we managed our tyres. So if you go back through the race you will see [Button] was on his own so he could push more and he was a couple of seconds faster than Fernando.
"Fernando was just managing his pace to make sure that the tyres were lasting until the end. So it’s not the real pace, the gap between Vettel and us is not the real one.”
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