Team are still yet to score a point since reuniting for 2015
Friday 1 May 2015 14:21, UK
Ron Dennis has ‘guaranteed’ that McLaren-Honda will return to the front of F1 despite the miserable start to their reunion.
The newly-reunited partnership started the season-opening Australian GP rooted to the back of the grid and have failed to score a point in the opening four races of the season.
But Dennis, who rubber-stamped McLaren’s switch from Mercedes power to Honda in the unequivocal belief that only a ‘works’ team could win in F1’s power-centric new turbo era, is adamant that success will follow.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we have a mountain to climb, but climbing it we are and scale its summit we will. That I guarantee,” the McLaren chief executive told the official F1 website. “McLaren and Honda share a passion to win in Formula One - we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.”
After suffering frequent bouts of unreliability through winter testing, the McLaren-Honda package remains at least two seconds a lap off Mercedes’ field-leading pace. However, Dennis is certain that his team are closing the chasm to the frontrunners
“We knew this season would be tough, but we’re making progress with every Grand Prix. it’s plain to see that development is going in the right direction,” he added.
“When it comes to power unit design and manufacture, Honda leads the way - globally. Their managers and engineers know their Formula One power unit isn’t yet the best, but it will be. They know that and so do we. So do our drivers - that’s why they want to drive for us. And that’s why a lot of other drivers want to drive for us too, as it happens.”
