Former McLaren team principal Eric Boullier doesn’t tell the story with bitterness. He tells it with the calm sting of a man who warned the room, was ignored, and later received one of the rarest currencies in Formula 1: a Ron Dennis apology.
Nearly a decade on from McLaren-Honda’s implosion, the Frenchman has reopened one of Woking’s most painful chapters – a reunion fueled by nostalgia but undone by reality.
For McLaren, the 2015 season was supposed to be a triumphant resurrection of the legendary Senna-Prost era; instead, it became a cautionary tale of corporate hubris.
A Warning Ignored
In 2014, while the rest of the grid was already grappling with the complex new hybrid power units, McLaren was preparing to ditch Mercedes for Honda.
Boullier, tasked with managing the transition, sensed disaster looming during his scouting missions to Japan. He saw a manufacturer that was fundamentally behind the curve, yet his warnings fell on the deaf ears of a boss convinced of his own invincibility.
In an interview last year with Motorsport Magazine’s Matt Bishop, the former McLaren F1 boss recalled the tension of those early factory visits.
“I remember arriving back in Woking from a visit to Honda’s Formula 1 headquarters in Japan sometime in 2014 and asking Ron Dennis: ‘How is it possible that Honda will be ready to compete with Mercedes and the others as early as next year when they are clearly still so far behind?’”
The response was classic Dennis – steely and dismissive. “Ron replied: ‘Don’t worry,’” Boullier noted.
Even as the evidence of a performance deficit mounted, the leadership refused to blink.
“Later, I revisited the Honda plant and I called Ron from there. ‘Come here and see for yourself,’ I said to him. But, again, Ron assured me that it would all work out OK.”
The Bitter Taste of Reality
The delusion shattered in February 2015 during pre-season testing at Jerez. The MP4-30 wasn't just slow; it was a "GP2 engine" nightmare, as Fernando Alonso would later famously scream over the radio.
While Mercedes, Renault, and Ferrari had years of development under their belts, Honda was playing a desperate game of catch-up.
“But it couldn’t and it didn’t. Honda just weren’t ready. They had begun work on their Formula 1 project at the end of 2012,” Boullier explained.
“Ferrari and Renault had started in 2010 and Mercedes had started in 2009. The Honda guys were miles behind.”
When the lap times finally laid bare the scale of the catastrophe, the iron-willed Ron Dennis did something almost unheard of in the history of the sport, as Boullier recounted.
“When we went testing at Jerez in February 2015 – and we were terrible: slow and unreliable – Ron called me and said: ‘You were right and I was wrong, Eric. This is probably the first time I’ve ever apologised to a Frenchman.’”
In a sport built on ego, it was seismic. Dennis, the unyielding architect of McLaren’s golden eras, humbled by facts, lap times, and a project that had promised the future but delivered only frustration and defeat.
Where McLaren Failed, Red Bull Thrived
Honda’s story, however, did not end in failure – it simply changed partners while doubling down on its engineering efforts.
After separating from McLaren at the end of 2017, the Japanese manufacturer regrouped with Red Bull, a team willing to integrate, adapt, and give Honda the time McLaren’s expectations never allowed.
The result was one of the most dominant periods in modern F1 history. With Red Bull, Honda refined its hybrid power unit, aligned its engineering philosophy, and built trust – culminating in Max Verstappen’s four consecutive world championships from 2021 to 2024.
Same manufacturer, radically different outcome.
Read also:
Honda sounds alarm on 2026 engine: ‘Not everything is going well’Today, the landscape has shifted again. McLaren has finally returned to the summit with its 2024 and 2025 Constructor titles, and Honda is gearing up for a fresh start with Aston Martin in 2026.
But for Boullier and those who lived through the 2015 collapse, the memory remains a spicy reminder that in F1, “don't worry" is often the most dangerous phrase a boss can utter.
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