McLaren Racing Director Eric Boullier believes the team’s size zero approach is still the way forward and he insists there are no regrets.
McLaren tried something different from the rest of the field last season, they were far more aggressive in their approach to the aerodynamics surrounding the packaging of the power unit which many believe was the cause of their poor performances.
Due to the restrictions surrounding the power unit McLaren and Honda rarely had the ability to run the engine on full power as the unit would fail. Despite these issues clearly coming as a result of the packaging Boullier believes the team had to try something radical in order to close the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari.
“No regrets at all,” Boullier told Autosport.com
“If you want to win you don’t copy the others. You need to do something better.
“We knew we would have to go through some pain, although we were not expecting what we felt, which was huge.
“But we also knew we had to work on solutions that would be better than the currently dominant forces.”
Regardless of the concerns following last season’s terrible performance when asked if McLaren planned on following the same policy Boullier was certain in his response “Yes, definitely.”
With new personnel on board and a better second half of the 2015 season, Boullier is confident the team have all the right pieces in place to make a significant improvement.
“There were changes, we moved a few people, with Pete (Peter Prodromou) on top providing the lead, and it’s working well, I’m very happy, with the car getting better and better.
“You have to remember that Formula 1 five years ago was free to develop, but we are not anymore.
“There are more restrictions, and more restrictions means it’s more difficult to catch up, and we are still catching up.
“But the car [this year] is already better [than last year], so it looks like we are going for another step.”
There is no doubt if McLaren can make the size zero package work they will be ahead of the curve but it is a massive risk once again, especially with new regulations coming in 2017.
