{"id":109642,"date":"2025-09-02T17:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T17:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/109642\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T17:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T17:33:08","slug":"why-ron-dennis-had-to-apologise-for-mclarens-honda-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/109642\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Ron Dennis had to apologise for McLaren’s Honda disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boullier, who served as McLaren\u2019s racing director between 2014 and 2018, told Motor Sport in an exclusive interview<\/a> that despite repeated warnings that Honda<\/a> would struggle to match Mercedes, Ferrari<\/a> and Renault at the dawn of F1\u2019s hybrid era, Dennis believed the revival of the famous McLaren-Honda<\/a> alliance could bring quick success.<\/p>\n

The Frenchman recalled visiting Honda<\/a>\u2018s Sakura facility in Japan soon after joining McLaren and being alarmed at the lack of progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember arriving back in Woking from a visit to Honda<\/a>\u2018s F1 headquarters in Japan some time in 2014 and asking Ron, \u2018How is it possible that Honda<\/a> will be ready to compete with Mercedes and the others as early as next year, when they\u2019re clearly still so far behind?’\u201d Boullier said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRon replied, \u2018Don\u2019t worry.\u2019 Later, I revisited the Honda<\/a> plant and I called Ron from there. \u2018Come here and see for yourself,\u2019 I said to him. But, again, he assured me that it would all work out OK. But it couldn\u2019t, and it didn\u2019t. They just weren\u2019t ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honda<\/a> had only begun developing its hybrid turbo engine at the end of 2012, whereas Mercedes had started as early as 2009.<\/p>\n

The result, said Boullier, was \u201cmiles behind\u201d the competition when the partnership launched in 2015.<\/p>\n

\"Fernando<\/p>\n

Alonso was very vocal about Honda\u2019s problems during 2015<\/p>\n

When the new McLaren-Honda<\/a> finally hit the track at Jerez that winter, the results were disastrous. The MP4-30 was off the pace and kept breaking down \u2013 it immediately exposed how far behind Honda<\/a> really was.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we went testing at Jerez in February 2015 and we were terrible \u2013 slow and unreliable \u2013 Ron called me and said, \u2018You were right and I was wrong. This is probably the first time I\u2019ve ever apologised to a Frenchman.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The Frenchman said that while both Fernando Alonso<\/a> and Jenson Button<\/a> were \u201cworld champion drivers,\u201d the underperformance created a toxic environment.<\/p>\n

Button, he explained, largely kept his frustration behind closed doors, but Alonso\u2019s anger spilled into the public eye with infamous radio messages like his \u201cGP2 engine\u201d jibe at Suzuka in 2015.<\/p>\n

Boullier also cited boardroom strife at McLaren during the Honda<\/a> years as another major obstacle.<\/p>\n

\"Fernando-Alonso-McLaren-2015-Austrian-GP-Red-Bull-Ring-in-Spielberg\"<\/p>\n

McLaren and Honda MkII was not a winning partnership<\/p>\n

\n Grand Prix Photo\n <\/p>\n

Dennis was in open conflict with co-owner Mansour Ojjeh, while the Bahraini investors sided against him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a stressful time,\u201d Boullier admitted. \u201cOn top of that, our engineers didn\u2019t understand or therefore manage well the consequences of F1 going to the hybrid era. I tried my best but by the middle of 2018 it was over, and I announced my resignation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the painful memories, Boullier said he is pleased to see McLaren thriving again under Zak Brown and Andrea Stella \u2013 two people he helped bring into the fold during his tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was me who introduced Zak to Mansour and Sheikh Mohammed [bin Essa Al Khalifa], our two main board members, and it was me who hired Andrea Stella from Ferrari,\u201d Boullier said. \u201cSo I\u2019m glad that Zak and Andrea are both doing so well now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boullier\u2019s full interview, in which he reflects on his career from DAMS to Renault, Lotus and McLaren, appears in the latest issue of Motor Sport<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boullier, who served as McLaren\u2019s racing director between 2014 and 2018, told Motor Sport in an exclusive interview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,1469,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-109642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mclaren","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}