20/08/2015
FEATURE BY GUEST AUTHORS
Despite employing some of the brightest minds in motorsport, McLaren's engineers are still scratching their heads as to why the Woking team is struggling so badly this year.
After ending a 20-year partnership with Mercedes-Benz at the end of last season and reuniting with Honda for the first time since 1992, it was inevitable that their new relationship would bring initial teething problems. However few could have predicted the extent of McLaren's troubles.
The revival of the famous McLaren-Honda partnership inevitably evokes memories of past glories and in turn raises expectation levels for a team that last won the constructors' title in 1998 and has failed to win a race in the last two seasons.
Completing fewest laps during pre-season testing than any other team on the grid that participated set initial alarm bells ringing however there appeared to be a consensus in the paddock that fortunes would change as the season progressed. That has not been the case.
While the reliability of the MP4-30 has been inconsistent, to blame all of McLaren's woes solely on their partnership with Honda would be far too simplistic.
McLaren's performance during its final year with Mercedes power in 2014 did little to inspire confidence in the team going forward and while a strong finish at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix lifted the spirits of those in the McLaren camp, questions remain over whether the team has the capability of replicating that level of performance on a regular basis in the second half of the season.
Team figures often proclaim that improvements are imminent yet tangible progress is hard to distinguish when McLaren is regarded as one of the top teams in Formula One yet has struggled to rectify its early season woes.
McLaren remains a team that appears to be hindered by internal conflict. Signing Eric Boullier as racing director from Lotus last season was initially something of a coup for McLaren and coincided with the return of Ron Dennis as chief executive officer yet the new partnership has failed to blossom thus far.
It is also unusual for McLaren's veteran driver pairing of Fernando Alonso - who remains one of the sport's top earners and whose pre-season crash in Barcelona remains something of a mystery - and Jenson Button to be wearing largely plain overalls and drive a car with a distinct lack of sponsorship logos. Alonso appears to be committed to the cause in the long-term however Button's future remains uncertain.
Companies will not have gone cold on McLaren overnight, however the positives of sponsoring one of Formula One's heritage teams currently do not appear to outweigh the negatives. Major brands are unlikely to want to be associated with a team that is suffering from a chronic lack of pace and performance.
McLaren seem to have all the right ingredients to mount a serious championship challenge in the future, however the team is currently in a prolonged rut that it must get out of sooner rather than later if it is to turn back time and relive the glory days of its past.