McLaren and Honda had a difficult first day with the MP4-30 in Jerez today, as Fernando Alonso logged only six laps – and did not set a representative time.
As at the Abu Dhabi test with the interim car last year Honda spent the day chasing electrical gremlins, mainly relating to a sensor.
“We have been quite extreme let’s say in packaging our car,” said the Frenchman. “And every technical solution which we brought to the car is something which we believe will help us to close the gap quite quickly with Mercedes. Being ambitious or brave doesn’t mean that we can be reliable. Obviously we are struggling with a few electrical issues, which are quite difficult again to fix.
“I think they are fixable, they could be fixed by tomorrow, but we may end up with some other issues somewhere else. I want to be a little but 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 it was inevitable that there would be problems, despite some issues having cropped up already in Abu Dhabi.
“Simulation, dynos, whatever you want, you need the track to get the package all together and to work together. We have the car here, the 2015 car, and obviously you have to go through again some pain and some glitches to allow us to run. We obviously don’t want to take any risks either, because if you blow up the engine you can face something damaging the car and you can lose more time. We have only 12 days. We would have loved to run more today, but we have to go step-by-step.”
Regarding the car’s potential he said: “When we do more laps I will tell you, but based on simulation at least better than the end of last year.”
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