McLaren director: Alonso never gave 'ultimatum' regarding Honda

McLaren executive director Zak Brown has insisted that Fernando Alonso never threatened to leave the team if they did not drop their partnership with Honda which was surrounded by constant engine reliability issues, even though the Japanese manufacturer has indeed been ditched.

Alonso, and McLaren, are currently going through a period which has been devoid of any significant success, with the driver having not won the championship for over a decade and the team not winning for 20 years.

In recent years the failures have been attributed to their Honda parts regularly not working correctly, and Alonso had been noticeably angered by the struggles, even going as far as to punch a hole in the wall of his room following an early exit at the Singapore Grand Prix.

Brown has claimed that the Spaniard never made threats to leave McLaren if they did not change suppliers.

“I have often heard that he gave us ultimatums but I want to assure you that this has never been the case,” the McLaren director said.

“He just wanted us to be competitive again.”

McLaren will now be powered by Renault engines, and this was the team which took Alonso to both his world championships in 2005 and 2006. Brown appreciates this partnership could provide more success in the future.

“I think he would have stayed if we felt we’d been competitive staying where we were [with Honda]. I think he would have bought into that.

[However] he has great history with Renault.”