In a season even more bereft of joy than the previous two, McLaren scored a total of just 27 points with arguably the best driver line on the grid. What’s more is that the Woking outfit was severely hampered by Honda’s lack of preparation for the hybrid era of Formula One, and were held accountable for McLaren’s worst season since 1980, in terms of points scored.
The signs of a lacklustre season came before the new year when McLaren ran Honda’s new engine in the team’s Mercedes 2014 car. Worryingly, Stoffel Vandoorne completed only a handful of laps in two whole days at the Yas Marina circuit. The team’s prospects were hampered even more by the injury sustained by Fernando Alonso that would rule him out of the season opener in Australia.
With the absence of Manor Marussia, only 18 cars would take to the track over the weekend, with both Magnussen and Button filling the final two spaces on the grid, becoming the first pair of drivers to do so in the team’s illustrious history. Button would almost go on to pick up an unlikely point, finishing 11th, albeit last and largely unscathed bar a collision with Sergio Perez, who finished 10th. Super-sub Kevin Magnussen, meanwhile, didn’t even have the opportunity to take the start as his engine lost power on the way to the grid.
McLaren’s double champion showed flashes of what the team’s partnership with Honda is capable of by reaching Q2 for the first time of the season and matched Button’s 11th place from Australia as a possible points finish edged closer. In stark contrast, it was Button’s turn to foster the team’s gremlins and barely set a fast lap all weekend. Battery problems sidelined him for Free Practice One, before re-appearing later in the day, as electrical issues plagued him for the next two days, preventing him from competing in either qualifying or the race.
At the Spanish Grand Prix, McLaren achieved their best qualifying performance of the season to date, with Alonso 13th, one place ahead of Button, although the top 10 was still almost 1.5 seconds away. Only Button would go on to finish the race, as a brake problem halted Alonso’s progress in his home race. His teammate didn’t fare much better, he couldn’t get to grips with the feel of the car in race conditions and finished 16th out of 18 runners, 1 lap down in a dismal 100th McLaren start.
The team headed to the tight and twisty Monaco street circuit looking to maximise on the cars aerodynamic strengths, and might have gotten into the top 10, had Rosberg not brought out a yellow flag at St Devote on Button’s final run, as he was just 0.5s away from a Q3 appearance and 3 places ahead of Alonso, who broke down at the start of the session. The Brit had a strong race to register the renewed McLaren-Honda partnership’s first points of the season, whereas Alonso’s hopes went up in a cloud of blue smoke, thanks to a gearbox malfunction early in the race.
Despite taking out his teammate after qualifying 17th for the British Grand Prix Alonso survived a race of attrition that included a late rain shower to salvage a point on home turf, holding off Marcus Ericcson towards the end, having fitted Intermediate tires too soon.
In a Grand Prix marred by the death of Jules Bianchi, Alonso put in his best result of the season, securing an unlikely fifth place, ahead of both Mercedes drivers, after a visor tear-off caused the brakes to overheat.The two-time world champion lucked into a strategy that secured him 10 points.Button made it McLaren’s first double points finish of the season and did not pit under the Safety Car and finished 30 seconds behind Alonso on older prime tires.
Button had one of his best qualifying sessions of the year at Spa and ended up 0.5s ahead of Alonso but out of Q1. The race, however, was the complete polar opposite as the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix winner called the race an “embarrassment” due to a lack of battery power as McLaren came 13th and 14th with 4 retirees.
The next round in Sochi showed even more of what may come in the future, despite help from a few casualties, as Button scored points for only the third time in 2015 with Alonso 11th after a time penalty.
In Texas, Alonso ended the race 11th again after engine troubles took away power from the already toothless Honda power unit. After starting where his teammate finished, Button registered McLaren’s best race finish since Hungary to take sixth in conditions that he has so often made his own.
While running some development parts for 2016, Button highlighted the gains made by the team in the final flyaway races to miss out on a first Q3 appearance in 12 months, missing out by less than two tenths. Despite making little progress in the race, Button managed to spring one last surprise before the winter break by holding off the Mercedes-powered Valtteri Bottas to finish 12th, while Alonso never recovered from a first corner crash with Maldonado and rounded off the season in 17th.
In what has been his most taxing season since Honda were last in the sport, Button has time and again demonstrated that he is one of the best drivers on the grid, even in the twilight of his career, and is now the only man to outscore either Lewis Hamilton or Fernando Alonso, never mind both, in the same car in spite of their status as the two best drivers of the current generation. Not only that but Button’s diplomatic qualities have shone through the struggles, as he has generally shown much more composure and mettle than his teammate in the face of the all-too-familiar adversity. It’s just a shame to see that what have turned out to be the Brit’s best years individually have been spent in cars that aren’t capable of fighting at the front.
As is was the case in Alonso’s last year at Renault, the double world champion doesn’t look up to his pragmatic best when trundling around and squabbling over the minor positions in the field, as a representative of the renewed McLaren- Honda partnership, he’s made a bit of a mockery out of Honda this year, and doesn’t even have a convincing teammate head to head pointing in his favour. That’s not to say that Alonso is facing the sack, in fact it can easily be argued that there’s no one better to lead the new era at McLaren, despite being upstaged by Button in the final few races.
