Boullier: 'More power' in Honda upgrade

Jun.6 - Eric Boullier has confirmed that Honda's Canada upgrade is delivering more power.

Earlier, McLaren drivers Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button both warned that despite Honda having traded in some FIA performance 'tokens', the Montreal upgrade is in fact more about reliability and efficiency than "raw power".

But team boss Boullier told Spain's Marca: "Yes, there is a horse power gain, but I cannot say more."

In short, it appears McLaren is keeping the ball low at present, after all the early hype of the high-profile reunion with Honda led only to the disastrous first months at the back of the field.

Honda chief Yasuhisa Arai said this week that a podium in 2015 remains the goal, but McLaren's engineer director Matt Morris commented on Friday: "Wouldn't it be great to get on the podium?

"I think that's a long way off."

Spaniard Alonso said the team is in fact working to improve one step at a time.

"We are missing eight tenths or one second to reach the fifth or sixth position," he said on Friday, "which is where we hope to be soon.

"Mercedes is in another world," added Alonso, "but there is another little group that we want to reach."

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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