McLaren no Red Bull for Honda

Spanish Formula One driver Fernando Alonso of McLaren Honda in action during the Canadan Grand Prix in Montreal, Canada, on Sunday. Picture: EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

Team McLaren are keen to help their Formula One partners Honda accelerate their progress as the struggling partnership seeks to recover from another disappointing double retirement at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Spain’s two-time champion, Fernando Alonso, and 2009 champion Briton Jenson Button gave vent to frustration on Sunday before laughing off talk of serious discord within the team with light-hearted Tweets.

These included turning the drivers’ championship table upside down to lift their spirits, a move that put Alonso on top of the table.

That humorous effort fitted in with McLaren’s refusal to blame Honda and to avoid the kind of public slanging match that broke out between struggling Red Bull and engine suppliers Renault earlier this year.

The double flop followed an encouraging run at last month’s Monaco Grand Prix where Button finished eighth to score the team’s only points this year.

On Saturday, he suffered an engine failure and on Sunday, after starting from the pit lane, he abandoned the race without making any impact.

For Alonso, Sunday’s retirement was his third in a row, something he has never experienced — and it came after an emotional radio exchange during which he said that the team "looked like amateurs".

In the wake of Sunday’s race, racing director Eric Boullier was fighting fires, trying to smooth over the worst of the troubles.

He pointed out that it was McLaren’s responsibility to support Honda — rather than blame them — as the two jointly sought solutions.

"They do listen," he said. "We have discussions every day.

"I don’t want to go into anything in public, but there is some way to improve and go faster and we need to go along that path.

"Of course, it is always easy to blame the partner. But, as a partner, we also have to be supportive of the other partner.

"We need to help them to accelerate this recovery time.

"To be fair, they decided to join Formula One only two years ago and it is not easy to be here and win. We just need to make sure we are properly equipped to do it. When you want to catch up, basically you have to put more resources in the programme.

"And, if you want to do it short-term, you need to bring more experienced resources.

"We have some software, IT, whatever it is, and we have this experience at home.

"So, McLaren can actually offer Honda support in this area to help them shift resources."

Boullier added: "It’s important that Honda should recover. I guess it’s not embarrassing now, because they are new into the programme.

"But it’s a question of how fast they will recover. "It is hard not to blame (anyone). It is a management exercise and we don’t want to be like Renault and Red Bull, fighting in the media. There’s no sense in that."

AFP