McLaren expects an easier second year with Renault

McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes the upcoming season will be a smoother one for his team and the French manufacturer Renault.

The Woking-based team had three pretty disastrous seasons with Honda before switching to Renault engines last season, but it was a relatively underwhelming season for McLaren - finishing in sixth-place.

Renault have been confident with the progress they have made with its engine and with a hopefully new-and-improved MCL34 for the British team, the two could work together for a successful season.

"Renault are saying things differently this year than they did last year," the McLaren boss said. "I.e. last year they were very grounded in where they thought their engine was and the deficit to the front.

"So on the basis of that we've found them to be very honest in their communication of where they think they are, so it's encouraging they're as positive as they are.

"A second year with Renault, we've done a better job working closely with them to develop the car around the power unit, we know the power unit better. That was some of our issues last year, I think we made the decision to change a little bit late and we had reliability issues, some of those were car design and not knowing the power unit and how to package it as well as we could do.

"So it seems like they're in a better spot, a better position to capitalise on a year's experience."