McLaren-Honda: “It’s not good enough” for Boullier
Eric Boullier believes that McLaren's Abu Dhabi tests, with a hybrid 2014 car equipped with a Honda engine, are a failure due to the few laps completed and the problems encountered.
The McLaren team ran during private testing this week in Abu Dhabi with the Honda engine, but things did not go as planned. Stoffel Vandoorne, who was at the wheel, was only able to complete five laps in two days – three on Tuesday and two on Wednesday.
While Eric Boullier stated that this running was a bonus in view of preparing for Honda’s return to F1, the Frenchman admits, as quoted by Crash.net, that the lack of running is a failure for the McLaren team: “This obviously wasn’t what we wanted to achieve. Our goal was to get the car out on track, use all the systems, and we didn’t expect to develop anything, just to try all the systems. We didn’t achieve that, so we failed on that point. Yes, it’s still a bonus because arriving at tests in Jerez and encountering the same problems would have been much more detrimental. At least, Honda and McLaren worked very hard to make this hybrid car and come here.”
Operationally, we achieved a lot and when we weren’t running, we dismantled the car into pieces and at least we learned a lot about the processes and what could go wrong in the future. Yes, it’s not good enough and we’re not happy with that, but at least we learned things that will be important to be prepared, » adds the Frenchman.
The director of the British team revealed that the issue that stopped the McLaren today in Abu Dhabi was the same as yesterday: « It was once again an electrical problem. We resolved several of them last night and today, and in the first installation lap, the car ran well and without any problems. When we returned to the track for a longer stint, the car simply stopped. […] We brought the car back and after 20 minutes of investigation, we couldn’t restart the car, so we just said ‘stop’. »
