McLaren’s reliability issues haven’t gone away despite an engine change this time round, with the MCL33 breaking down thrice today, twice on track and once in the pit lane.
Shifting from an Honda powered engine to a Renault powered engine was supposed to give McLaren more reliability but that hasn’t been the case, as they have registered the lowest number of laps in the 5 days of testing combined.
On the first day of testing last week, Alonso’s rear tyre came out, with the MCL33 landing in the gravel, but this time round the problem has been electric, raising serious questions about how the F1 2018 season would pan out for them after struggling with reliability issues for sometime now.
The problem though doesn’t seem with the Renault engine, as team Renault F1 haven’t experienced any engine related issues in the first 5 days of testing.
On the other hand, Honda powered Toro Rosso has enjoyed a fruitful winter testing until now, having completed the highest number of laps in the first leg of the testing.
The Toro Rosso boss has tried to take a slight dig at McLaren by saying that the Honda engine is working perfectly fine for them, suggesting that probably the problem had been with McLaren itself all along.
“We are happy with the Honda engine which is doing a fantastic job,” said the Toro Rosso team boss.
“I am convinced they will supply us with a very competitive package. I am sure that during the season we will catch up and by the end of the season we will have a very competitive car. Our target is to be in the front part of the midfield.
“I don’t care about McLaren. I am convinced that by the end we will have a more competitive package than them.” he added.
The Twitter team of Toro Rosso too didn’t shy away from a little banter, taking a massive dig at the Woking based McLaren team.
McLaren too came up with a response and Mercedes then joined in.
