- Jerez Test - Day One
'Brave' McLaren prone to early reliability issues
Eric Boullier is confident the problem that stopped the McLaren-Honda from completing more than six laps on the first day of testing can be resolved by day two, but said the "brave" new car could have further issues.
Fernando Alonso completed three single-lap runs and one three-lap run on the first morning of testing before electrical gremlins with the new Honda power unit brought his day to an early end. Teething issues were common at the start of the new V6 turbo era last year, but Honda is coming into the sport one year after its rivals and could end up facing similar setbacks this week in Jerez.
Boullier believes Sunday's problems are fixable overnight but said there is a chance the ambitious design of the new MP4-30 will spawn more issues on Monday.
"You've seen the car now and we've been quite extreme in packaging the car," he said. "Every technical solution that we have brought to the car is something that we believe will help us close the gap quite quickly with Mercedes. But being ambitious and brave doesn't mean we can be reliable and we are struggling with a few electrical issues, which are quite difficult to fix.
"I think they are fixable and could be fixed by tomorrow, but we may end up with another issue elsewhere, so we want to be cautious on this because every time we try to fix one we open up something else further. We will get on top of this. I don't know when, but obviously as soon as possible."
Boullier said there was no point in pushing the power unit beyond its limits and causing even more damage.
"We don't want to take any risk because if you blow up the engine you can face something damaging the car and you lose more time. We have only 12 days and we have and we would have loved to run more today but we have to do it step by step."
On the plus side, the McLaren racing director thinks his team does have the potential to close the gap to Mercedes.
"That was the aim of McLaren-Honda, to be brave and catch up and close the gap as soon as possible. If you want to be better, we have to be much better than the others. They [Honda] went through some good technical solutions and that has maybe brought some reliability issues, but again they are on top of it and they know where to go. They have the people, the technology, so I think they can match it [Mercedes], yes."
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