McLaren race director Eric Boullier suggests his team are working “flat-out” to fix issues on 2018 car rather than focusing their efforts on the 2019 version.
The British team have strongly improved since the switch to a Renault engine, but haven’t been as a strong as advertised in the winter months. In the battle for fourth, ‘the best of the rest’ McLaren are currently 16 points down on French team Renault.
Boullier sounded confident that his team are doing the right thing by developing this seasons car.
“I think it’s worth developing it for a couple of reasons. The first one is to understand what’s wrong and to not repeat any kind of platform mistakes in the future,” said Boullier in an interview on crash.net.
“There’s still time to develop this car, potentially curing low-speed lack of grip which has a big impact on top performance.
“We also need to make sure we don’t compromise next year’s development as well as understanding the car. We are flat out on trying to cure these car issues.”
The McLaren drivers have now gone pointless in the last two Grands Prix. Whilst Stoffel Vandoorne hasn’t scored since Baku. This will all need to change before Renault have a chance of running away with 4th place.