With a new engine partnership with Renault for next season, Eric Boullier is expecting that McLaren will be able to score its first win since 2012 next season.
McLaren previously used Mercedes power from 1995-2014 before switching to Honda power for 2015. An unfruitful three year relationship however, saw the Woking-based team divorce the Japanese engine supplier on the weekend of the Singapore Grand Prix, switching to Renault for next year.
Boulier expects that this new partnership will be a success in its maiden season but maintained realistic expectations: "For 2018, our goal is to fight for third place in the constructors' championship," he told Spain's Marca.
"But I hope we can do more than this and get a win after so many years.
"I will not start to create false expectations or put hope in our fans that we cannot fulfil, but I believe that we will at least win a race [next year]," he added.
One setback McLaren has faced however, is its late deal with Renault, which has delayed the team's schedule for 2018 by two weeks. Despite this however, Boullier remained positive, with McLaren's skill in building mostly exceptional F1 cars driving him on.
"It’s a bit early. There’s still some regulation changes for next year with the introduction of Halo and this kind of stuff, and we’re just in September," he said.
"Even if we started working early on next year’s car, we need to wait a little bit more. We also need to wait for testing and obviously Australia to understand where the other teams are in terms of performance.
"We have always been in the top three, but we were far from that position in the last three years. So we are going with Renault to have a better engine and get back to those top positions," he added.
