McLaren insist progress is still being made despite Austria woes

McLaren chief Eric Boullier insists progress with their Honda-powered car hasn’t come to a standstill despite the team experiencing a repeat of their miserable Canada weekend in Austria.

From the apparent breakthrough result of Monaco when Jenson Button scored the team’s first points of 2015, McLaren have slipped back towards the bottom of the field in the last two events at the pair of power-dominated tracks.

Chances of maximising what potential they do have in Austria has been further hampered by a sting of heavy power unit-related sanctions, with both Fernando Alonso and Button carrying 25-place grid penalties into the weekend after wholesale changes to their cars.

However, despite the prospect of yet another point-less weekend, Boullier says improvements have continued to be made in recent weeks but that the nature of the last two tracks has exacerbated the package’s major weaknesses.

“I think we are doing progress. If we would come back to Australia, to China, to Bahrain we would be better,” he insisted.

“Different track layouts are also helping or making it worse. We know that Canada and here definitely are not suiting our car. Silverstone we may be just okay, but Budapest should be better for us. Obviously it’s a shorter and twisty track and by then we would have improved the car.

“So we keep improving, but some track layouts there are some deficit in our weaknesses that are higher than someone else’s and that couple or tenths you gain are not enough to climb some positions.”

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Although overshadowed by the massive penalties both their drivers have accrued in Austria, McLaren have introduced a fundamental change to Alonso’s MP4-30 this weekend with a new shorter ‘stubbier’ nose.

Button is still running the older-spec design and the qualifying timesheet suggested there was little difference in performance between them, with Alonso only quicker by one tenth of a second in Q1. However, the Spaniard believes McLaren can be pleased with their aerodynamic improvements.

“It felt good and I felt an improvement to the car with more grip. So the direction is good and the new parts are delivering more or less what we expect, so happy with those.

“It was a little bit tricky conditions out there, you just had one lap – the last lap of the session – because the conditions were a little bit better and you work the tyres a little bit and you have that chance. My lap was not particularly good, so maybe the difference [between the two cars] is only one tenth because Jenson did a better lap. But I got lucky and got to Q2.”

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