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Boullier explains reason for McLaren driver delay

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says driver negotiations were delayed until after the summer break simply to manage the team’s workload.

Jenson Button is out of contract at the end of the season, with McLaren seemingly left with a straight decision whether to retain the 2009 world champion alongside Fernando Alonso or promote reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne.

With Ferrari opting to make an early decision to retain Kimi Raikkonen for next year, citing the need for stability while it tries to deliver a winning car, when asked by F1i why McLaren was yet to make a decision, Boullier replied: “It’s very simple.

“Driver discussions are always very emotional with the fans, with the sponsors and even internally. So we had six races in eight weeks, we had a difficult summer, so why start the headache of having these discussions in the middle of this, you know?

“So we decided lets get through the shutdown, everybody’s rested, we’ll come back from the shutdown and then we’ll sit down and start to discuss what we want to do.”

Button’s future has been a hot topic at McLaren for each of the last two seasons, with an extension signed at the end of 2014 before an option was activated last year. However, with no contract in place for next season, the 36-year-old has been linked with a move to Williams as well as a seat in the World Endurance Championship.

Button himself says he is happy to wait until next month to start discussions with McLaren over next year’s plans.

“September we’re going to sit down and have a chat and decide whether I want to be racing be in Formula One and whether they want me to be racing in Formula One, whatever the decision is,” Button said.

“If I’m not racing in Formula One next year I don’t know what I’m going to do, have some fun! My adult whole life I’ve been living by a schedule and suddenly I won’t be, which will be the worst in my 18 years as an adult. But that’s exciting for whenever it happens.

“In terms of racing, I’d like to do other racing series in future. I would love to be part of a WEC programme, I really enjoy the camaraderie and team effort that goes into building and racing a car over a long distance event.”

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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.