Alonso: "Honda starting from zero each year was detrimental"

McLaren Honda driver, Fernando Alonso, has said that Honda's strategy of starting from zero each year was detrimental to its efforts in F1 with McLaren. The team has decided to ditch the Honda engines after three frustrating years with the Japanese outfit, after suffering from poor performance and poor reliability, and have now decided to use Renault engines for the next three ears.

A major factor in the decision to change engines was said to be Fernando Alonso, who has been very vocal with his frustrations over the past three years, with the two-time world champion suffering his first seasons without a podium since his debut season with the backmarking Minardi team. It has been said that Alonso issued McLaren an ultimatum, telling them either Honda leaves or he leaves.

Alonso has now said his own theories on why Honda struggled so much, saying: "I think the biggest problems we faced in the last three years was winter testing, because we came to the next season, and we started from zero, so we had to improve things a lot, and Australia was a test, China was a test, Bahrain was a test, and we ended up with a package, a power unit, that we knew more or less how it works.

"That put you in a position and a hope that next year you will start there, and the gap is closer and closer. And it didn't happen. Every single season we had to change the philosophy of the engine, we had to change the turbine position, we changed different things that slowed us a little bit too much in terms of development."

Sam Gale