But things are nowhere near that bad. Yes, McLaren has had problems. Yes, it hasn't shown a turn of speed capable of taking the fight to a Red Bull team that, thanks to their shared engine supplier, is its natural benchmark. But the mood in the team is still positive and the car, when moving, is working pretty well - and it passes the 'eye test' as well from trackside.
"This is a new relationship with Renault, so there are a few things we are discovering - as a team as well," says McLaren racing director Eric Boullier. "The glitches we have had so far are not very important, but they are stopping us running.
"The car is also quite complicated, so every time you have an issue you spend hours to strip everything off, fix it, and rebuild the car.
"The car is new so the mechanics are not used to going fast. Generally, between testing and the European season, you change an engine in six hours and by Barcelona [the Spanish GP in May] you do it in two-and-a-half hours, so that's how much you can progress in working on the car. We are at the beginning now.
"The wheelnut we had last week and the exhaust problem, they kept the car in the garage for hours just to repair them."
The exhaust, in fact, has been at the root of a few dramas, not just the problem with a £2 bolt that caused a stoppage last week. The car ran on Tuesday with three additional slots cut in the engine cover to deal with some heat soak pockets that were causing small scorches on the bodywork. Boullier admits some minor underbody cooling design changes need to be made. Again, not unusual but troubling if not sorted by Melbourne.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/feature/80 ... era-so-farBut when the car is running, things look far more promising. From trackside, it looks like it's doing what drivers Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne want. As Boullier points out in reference to criticisms of a car last year that, early in testing at least, looked bad, for the first time Autosport technical expert Gary Anderson has been positive about McLaren this winter.
