Jenson Button being able to finish the Australian Grand Prix was described as “a little victory” for McLaren, but Eric Boullier says the bigger picture must not be forgotten.
While Kevin Magnussen failed to start the race due to a power unit problem, Button completed the opening round of the season, albeit two laps down. Having watched from the team’s garage, Magnussen said it was a big achievement for McLaren to get one car to the finish.
“Even though it’s not normal for McLaren, it’s a little victory in itself that the other car finished the race,” Magnussen said. “There’s going to be a lot of learning from that, so that’s positive at least.”
Racing director Eric Boullier, however, told F1i there are few positives to take from having to run so far off the pace just to see the finish.
“For the records, the first race ever of McLaren-Honda - the new generation - finished the race, but that’s it,” Boullier said.
“At least we could run the full team - both Woking and Sakura - everybody together. So we have a lot of things on our task list to improve, but at least we ran it. Everything we did not do in testing we did now, so it was really a training weekend.”
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