McLaren-Honda Racing Director Eric Boullier was proud of the performance his drivers, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, treated us to at the United States Grand Prix on Sunday, in what he considered an exciting race.
The Frenchman was thrilled the pair were able to bring home a double points finish for the Woking based team, somewhat making up for the disappointment of last weekend’s result in Japan.
“We saw exciting wheel-to-wheel battles up and down the field all afternoon, many of them involving our drivers.”
The 42-year-old was highly praising of both Alonso and Button, who he felt each did a sterling job to go from sitting outside the top ten, to come home and finish in the points.
“Fernando drove a storming race from 12th on the grid to fifth at the flag, forcing his way through the field with a series of brilliant passing manoeuvres; and if he has a rival for the ‘driver of the day’ accolade, it can only be Jenson, who blasted his way from P19 at the start to P9 at the finish.
“I’m proud of both of them, as are all of us at McLaren-Honda.”
Boullier was impressed that despite a pretty average qualifying session on Saturday with neither car making it through to Q3, the Woking based team were able to make amends on Saturday when the performance of the MP4-31 was much improved. A big positive for the whole team.
“It was gratifying to see that, despite our disappointing qualifying form yesterday, today, as we’d hoped and indeed predicted, our race pace was significantly more impressive, allowing our drivers to enjoy themselves enormously.”
“You only had to look at the way our car changed direction to see how good its chassis is becoming. I also want to commend our partners Honda, whose power units ran flawlessly all afternoon.”
“So today was a good day, undoubtedly.”
Sunday’s result showed just how far the McLaren Honda Formula 1 Team have come this year, and it has given them fresh hope going into next weekend’s race in Mexico, as well as for the remainder of the season.
