McLaren racing director Eric Boullier is adamant that the team has solved its key issues and will be able to build a competitive car for 2015.
“I do have the confidence that we will have a good car from next year,” he said today. “Just because obviously we’ve addressed all the issues internally, and I believe we made all the right decisions. We have seen already in Austria the first benefits of the changes which we have done in the organisation, and I think now we are heading in the right way.”
Boullier said that the partnership with Honda will be a huge boost for the team: “Having a works engine allows you to play, let’s say, with much more set-up possibilities than if you have a customer engine. We can just take this year’s example, if you just compare Mercedes GP and Red Bull Racing, we all know the Red Bull Racing chassis is very good, maybe slightly better than the Mercedes one, but the big difference between both is that Red Bull has a Renault engine, which is not a works engine.”
He says that Honda’s development programme is on schedule.
“This is a big project, and obviously it takes months, even years to build it up, so you work with a clear schedule in place, and obviously some clear objectives to target. So far I think everything is in order and matching the path we have until the next year first race.”
As to whether Jenson Button will still be on board he said: “It’s a question that I cannot say yes and I cannot say no to. We are evaluating or assessing every strategy for the future, and we are lucky to have two drivers who want to commit to us for the future, and we have some options that we can take up, so we are not worried about next year or about, let’s say, the future driver line-up.”
Adam Cooper F1 
It’s a big ask to hope that Honda will have a more competetive engine than Mercedes next year.
I think Jenson has passed his peak & should jump before he is pushed by Ron Dennis. His experience gets him a few extra points here & there but he hasn’t made Magnussen or Perez look slow. OK for a lesser team but not what McLaren should be aiming for.
I’m sure the people who where at McLaren before Eric thought they had made all the right decisions, too, yet they lead them from winning races to worst Mercedes team, behind Williams and Force India, in 18 months,
I’m sure they’re sweating bullets over Honda’s engine in Woking, can you imagine where they’d be if it’s more of a Renault than a second Mercedes?
I agree on the fall of McLaren. Totally stunning to me. Been a fan since I saw them race at Lime Rock park here in CT ages ago.
You can be sure of one thing: Honda has ALL the performance data of the MB power unit and their new system will match up well or even exceed the MB’s performance levels. The Japanese do not enter these engineering contests without a will to win.
The bigger question is, will McLaren know what to do with it and how to efficiently exploit it?
Nicely put, George.
As George wrote, Honda will have learnt the advantages from all PU’s and theirs will be at least as good as Merc’s. They’ve had the advantage of developing whilst everyone else is homologated.
I think Jensen is off, maybe to Haas? Kamui to McLaren?