McLaren is willing to give Honda time to sort its issues but is adamant that it wants a fast engine for the 2018 season. The McLaren-Honda partnership has taken a turn for the worst in 2017, with the pair on the verge of divorce.
In Austria, things did not look so doom and gloom for the team, as both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne made it out of Q1 and lined up P12 and P13. The result came rather unexpectedly, as Speilberg is very much a power sensitive track.
"It's still very much a work in progress," said Zak Brown. "We need to figure out our relationship with them moving forward, soon. You start getting in to next year's car (design) in the next few months and what we have to have is a competitive engine for next year.
"They're working hard on it and doing some things that are for them to speak about to make those improvements. So we want to give them as much runway as possible to get there."
With the mid-way point of the season creeping up, McLaren sits bottom of the standings with two points to its name, coming from Alonso is Baku. The team has been linked with a switch back to Mercedes power for next season, and return to Honda when they become competitive.
Fergal Walsh
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Also read as "McLaren have sniffed about and there's no good deals, so they might just have to suck it up and wait it out for Honda....."