McLaren boss fully behind team turnaround

It was meant to be different for McLaren this season following the switch from Honda engines to Renault power units after years without success, but Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne have not had much to work with with the new car. Eric Boullier, however, has backed everyone in the team to bounce back.

McLaren's ambition before the campaign was to, at the very least, finish fourth and perhaps break the triopoly of Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes, but they currently find themselves fifth in the rankings, with Renault in fourth.

In terms of drivers, Fernando Alonso is in seventh and Stoffel Vandoorne is in 15th.

When asked if he had confidence that everyone at McLaren had the talent to catalyse a turnaround, Boullier was positive about the team's future.

"We have 100 percent confidence in the group of people we have at McLaren.

"We can blame obviously some issues on the car. Definitely I think the car this year is not the car we were expecting to have. It's just a matter of understanding why and making sure we have the right vision and leadership for the future to conduct and make sure we can design and manufacturer competitive cars.

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"I believe in the people we have in place today. There is a great talented bunch at McLaren."

Some commentators have suggested that McLaren would be better suited, even at just seven races in this campaign, allocating resources towards the development of their 2019 vehicle, effectively making the 2018 season a write-off.

However, Boullier does not think that is necessary, insisting the 2018 car can still be improved upon.

"I think it's worth to develop it for a couple of reasons," the McLaren boss continued.

"The first one is to understand what's wrong and to not repeat any kind of platform mistakes in the future. I think there's still time to develop this car, potentially curing the low-speed lack of grip which has a big impact on top performance. So those are two reasons why we should carry on.

"We also need to make sure we don't compromise next year's development as well as understanding the car. That's the balance which we are working on. We are flat out on trying to cure these car issues, and to make sure we understand it, and obviously we will start soon on next year."