McLaren are almost back on schedule for the upcoming season following a late decision to switch from Honda to Renault power for 2018 according to race director Eric Boullier.
With Honda unable to deliver a competitive power unit during the three seasons together, McLaren were forced into cutting ties with the Japanese manufacturer and sourced a supply from Renault, but that wasn't confirmed until very late in the year.
Boullier admits that has impacted their schedule by a couple of weeks, but they've worked hard to recover the lost time.
"Maybe we made the decision to change the engine manufacturer two weeks too late for our schedule – but these two weeks have almost been recovered," he told the official F1 website.
"You have to adapt and adjust to the [new] engine layout, but the architecture will remain the same. We have a clever concept, so it’s not going to be a big drama."
Boullier did admit it was too early to say whether they'd be ready for the first pre-season test, but said things were looking positive at this stage in the development process.
"It is too early to say that now," he replied. "You push the boundaries to the limit all the time and if you have that constant development in performance – in the wind tunnel, in CFD, whatever – you want to push the limit to the last minute before you start the manufacturing process.
"You simply want to wait as long as possible to make sure that you’ve derived each and every bit of information and data when you start manufacturing. And I can say: so far so good!"
