Did McLaren ditch Honda at the wrong time?

Judging pre-season alone the Honda engine seemingly performed much better inside the Toro Rosso car.

Toro Rosso managed to run throughout the second week with the same power unit suggesting that Honda’s reliability has much improved.

This comes at a time when McLaren, who have experienced Honda issue after issue, ditched the engine supplier to change to Renault.

This sparks the question; Did McLaren ditch Honda just as they started to improve?

But Fernando was soon to dismiss this claim and said: “We will see how the Honda is in Australia.

“They did a good winter test and if they are in the first five I will applaud. But i don’t think so. One test is not the same as 21 races with three engines.

“I think they can be in the last three or four positions and we at McLaren will try to be in the first five or six.

“We are very happy with the change to Renault - we have improved four seconds compared to last year.”

The McLaren car still experienced many problems throughout pre-season completing very little laps in comparison to the rest of the field.

Despite this, Alonso seems convinced that McLaren will now begin their return to the top.

“I do not see any reason to be pessimistic.

“McLaren is the second best team in history, Renault is one of the best engine makers ever and we are full of ambition. I do not see why it will not turn out well.

"Things have not changed much since the presentation or the plans we had for the winter.

"We wanted to improve on the last three years and try to get as close as possible to the three best teams. We are on the way to doing that.”

Alonso believes that they won’t go straight into a fight with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull but will be much closer.

"McLaren can jump from being ninth to being close to them and fighting in the race.

"When we changed to Renault we all agreed that it would be good if McLaren was close to the top three, in the top five in every race possible, always in Q3 and fighting for a podium when we can."