McLaren gave Honda six months to turn fortunes around

McLaren's executive director Zak Brown has revealed that his team gave Honda six months to improve the fortunes of the McLaren-Honda Formula One outfit due to a season which was littered with engine reliability issues, with the partnership having now been terminated.

McLaren and Honda had a partnership from the 2015 season, but it not evolve into much success on the track. The performances were attributed to the manufacturers' design approach, but it was engine reliability issues which hampered any efforts for success in the 2017 campaign. McLaren warned Honda they needed to improve, and gave an ultimatum with a time limit of six months to do better.

“We knew we were in trouble in testing in Barcelona and we worked really hard for six months to try and find solutions that would give us confidence that we'd be much more competitive in 2018,” Brown told Sky Sports F1.

“Ultimately, after trying many different things and many different ways we felt we couldn't get there. Three years is a long time in Formula 1 and so we needed to change the direction to get our team back at the top.”

From 2018 McLaren will have their engines provided by Renault, with Honda now working with Toro Rosso. The McLaren-Honda partnership may not have garnered much success, but Brown did not rule out working with the Japanese company again in the future.

“They are a great company with great people. The relationship was always strong and is still strong so wouldn't rule out racing with them again,” Brown continued.

“We wish them the best but we needed to make some tough decisions in our best interests. The relationship was a lot stronger than people anticipated. We worked hard together, we were frustrated together, but we never yelled at each other down to the end.”