No timeline set for McLaren-Honda recovery, says Boullier

Jenson Button finished 11th in the Australian Grand Prix, but was the last-placed driver and two laps down.

With Honda having to run detuned because of concerns about overheating of the MGU-K, Boullier refused to be drawn on when there would be a fix in place to allow the team to go flat out.

"There is no timeframe," said Boullier.

"Starting from where we are, the base is here. It's a little bit of a circle, the chicken and the egg.

"We can develop the car, but if you don't go fast enough you don't switch the tyres on so you lose a lot of [car performance] paramaters.

"The more we increase the capacity and performance of our car, the more we will unlock the potential of the car.

"So we should massively unlock some potential at the beginning, but when we will achieve a decent competitive result, I don't know yet."

Yasuhisa Arai, the boss of Honda's engine programme, stressed that the company has a clear idea of how to fix the problem.

But he too would not commit to a deadline for when concerns about overheating will be allayed and allow the engine to run more competitively.

"Already we know what happened, so we are going carefully step by step and [have] confirmed [the problem].

"After the confirming, we apply that at the next race and the next race, going step by step. I don't say what is the target date."

While there are those within the team who are disappointed with the progress made by Honda so far, Boullier stressed that he did not feel that the engine is solely responsible for McLaren's struggles.

"I don't believe that we have a winning car and the engine is that bad," he said.

"The car is a new concept and even if the base is good and the car is drivable and performing, we still have to develop this concept.

"We know that, in terms of simulation, the car is good compared with last year but we also know that the aero development and vehicle dynamics development that we can bring to this car in the next few months is massive."