McLaren boss Ron Dennis says the team have already made “really good steps” with their 2017 car but expressed his disappointment at their performance this season.
After their ‘annus horribilis’ in 2015, McLaren has climbed into the heart of the midfield and look set to finish sixth in the Constructors’ championship.
Whilst the Woking outfit are now consistently making Q3 and scoring points, they have tumbled dramatically short of their lofty expectations upon their reunion with Honda.
Asked to rate their 2016 season out of ten, Dennis replied: “About a five.
“We’re just not good enough. We are here to win races and we’re not winning races, but we are going in the right direction.”
The team have now turned their attention to the 2017 season and hope to profit from the overhaul of the regulations.
Dennis believes the early signs are promising.
“Our new engine is running on the dyno now and that’s several months earlier than our engine last year,” he revealed.
“We are well advanced on the car and making really good steps. As everyone will have been telling you, the cars will be four, maybe five to six seconds faster, and I think that’s when the great drivers will start to excel.”
It will be the highly-rated Stoffel Vandoorne and Fernando Alonso who will lead the team’s anticipated charge next year, but Dennis has refused to rule out a 2018 return for Jenson Button.
“We all get a little mentally weary and for a driver, it is physical and mental. I’d like to see how he is in about four months’ time,” he said.
“I think he will be pretty bored, l think he will be hungry again, and l think the opportunity for him to come back exists.
“We want him to be fully involved in all things we are developing and so we needed to close off the opportunity of that data going to another team. So wanting him to be involved meant having him under contract for 2018 – and that’s what we have done.
“It’s difficult to predict what is going to happen in 2018. But I don’t think having three great drivers is a bad problem to have. I will worry about the decision as and when it has to be taken.”
With Vandoorne boasting a mightily impressive record in the junior formulae and tipped to take F1 by storm, there may be no room for Button even if he chooses not to hang up his helmet. That would mean the next four races could well prove his last.
