McLaren – Boullier: “Mercedes can be caught up”

Before the retirements of Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button in the last round in Bahrain, it had been 21 races since a McLaren had last been unclassified in a Grand Prix. After working on the cars, a problem with the clutches was detected.

The team therefore took advantage of the two days of testing on the Sakhir track to find a solution to the problem, which was indeed the case according to Eric Boullier, the sporting director of the team: « It was an accident. It has been fixed on the cars and you could see yesterday [note: Tuesday] and today [note: Wednesday] that the problem was gone. »

The Frenchman admits he was a little worried to see his two drivers retire during the race last Sunday, but now that the problem has been identified and resolved, the team can start anew: « It was a dilemma at the time and obviously a concern because we experienced two retirements. But it is now corrected. »

Boullier, however, believes that Jenson Button was the fastest driver behind the Mercedes and could have overtaken the two Force India cars to reach the podium if he hadn’t encountered reliability issues: « If you look at Jenson’s performance, we could potentially have finished ahead of the Force India cars. I think we could have been the best of the rest. »

If other teams believe their pace is impressive, like Red Bull for example, McLaren thinks there is still time to catch up with Mercedes. Boullier states: “We will have to look aggressively to see if we can catch up with Mercedes, and we’ll know in a few races. But we will try to close the gap quickly. It’s important, but a one-second gap to bridge is not impossible. We know the areas we need to work on and improve, so I think Mercedes can be caught.”