Despite a rocky relationship with Honda, McLaren have zero hard feelings towards their former partners. Even after three dismal years of failures and under-performance, McLaren’s Zak Brown and Fernando Alonso foresee happy times for them.

Honda’s engine supply agreement with Red Bull for 2019 and 2020 brings them back to the forefront. This will be al the more important, especially after its McLaren debacle.

Brown supported the logical decision to dump Honda after the two were clearly going nowhere. But he admitted that the team’s former partner has made significant progress since last year.

“Honda has clearly taken a step forward this year and learned from the past three years,” he said.

“It’s a great company and of course they have made progress.”

Fernando Alonso mischievously labeled the Honda’s power unit as a “GP2 engine” in the past. But now, he believes that Red Bull will remain a strong contender after ditching Renault for Honda. He has credited the Austrian team’s superior chassis as a major boost.

“There is always a reference team with its chassis and it doesn’t matter if it’s Renault or Honda, I don’t think it will change much,” the Spaniard said.

Interestingly, McLaren racing director Eric Boullier gave an assessment of what it takes to win a championship in F1.

“I think Red Bull is showing that you can win races as a customer, but I think winning a championship is another level — you need to have a works team status,” he said.

The irony of the statement was that, since Honda were only supplying McLaren last year, they automatically had works status.

The question in everybody’s mind is, can McLaren restore their former glory? Or will they be the new back markers? One thing is for sure, it is painful to see a team with so much history and a driver of Fernando Alonso’s calibre struggle so much.