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Boullier: McLaren targeting race wins in 2017

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has said that the team's main aim in 2017 above all else has to be "to win" Grand Prix races - but he admits that it remains a tall order for the once-dominant racing organisation.

"In reality, I want to be pragmatic and not set expectations too high," Boullier told Autosport magazine this week. "We want to win as early as possible, but I'm dealing with the reality."

The team's chief operations officer Jonathan Neale had previously said that the team would be disappointed with fourth place or lower in this year's championship, but Boullier was realistic about McLaren's chances of overhauling Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari at the top of the table.

McLaren aiming for top three finish in 2017 championship

"We were ninth [two years ago], sixth last year so hopefully we're in the top four next year," he said.

"I'm very happy with the Honda approach and I'm happy with the group of engineers we have in McLaren," he added. "It's working absolutely perfectly now.

"They are working hard, but the days when you can turn up with a new aero kit on the car and gain one second are finished.

"Now it's incremental gains all the time. And it's also just time."

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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.