McLaren: 'No discussion' about drivers yet

Jun.7 - Seven races into a new era, McLaren-Honda still needs to improve "everything" -- but perhaps not the drivers.

Last week, speculation spilled into the British tabloids about the British team potentially dumping Jenson Button for 2016.

Jonathan Neale, managing director, admits the Woking team has an "embarrassment of riches" at present in the form of champions Button and Fernando Alonso and the talented youngsters Kevin Magnussen and Stoffel Vandoorne.

"Who knows what we'll do next year," he told British television Sky in Canada.

But "There is no internal discussion of doing anything different. My personal view is that both Fernando and Jenson have done a fantastic job for us this year," Neale said.

"I see no reason why that would change."

It is in every other area that McLaren-Honda does need to improve, team boss Eric Boullier openly admits.

Montreal has been yet another notably difficult weekend for the team, as Alonso struck technical trouble in practice and Button sat out qualifying altogether with a broken car.

And that happened in the presence of key team shareholders at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the Brazilian outlet UOL Esporte claims.

"There's pressure, but that's normal," Frenchman Boullier is quoted as saying.

"Shareholders, like in any company in the world, visit us, give us support, but they also understand.

"We are professional and transparent, so they know what we are doing and I hope that we also know what we are doing," he smiled.

Asked what areas McLaren-Honda needs to focus the hardest on as it continues to push to the front, Boullier answered: "Everything."

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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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