Eric Boullier: Ron Dennis apologised as McLaren-Honda’s 2015 nightmare became impossible to ignore
Eric Boullier has lifted the lid on just how quickly reality bit at the start of McLaren’s doomed reunion with Honda, revealing that Ron Dennis apologised to him in early 2015 for brushing off warnings about the Japanese manufacturer’s readiness.
Boullier, McLaren’s racing director through that turbulent period, told Motor Sport magazine he’d sounded the alarm months before the first V6 hybrid McLaren-Honda even turned a wheel. After multiple trips to Honda’s F1 base in Japan during 2014, he returned to Woking with a simple question: how could Honda possibly be ready to fight Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault by 2015?
“I remember arriving back in Woking…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?’” Boullier recalled. “Ron replied: ‘Don’t worry.’”
Boullier says he pushed harder after a subsequent visit. “I called Ron from [the Honda plant]. ‘Come here and see for yourself,’ I said to him. But, again, Ron assured me that it would all work out OK.”
It didn’t. The scale of the problem was exposed at the very first test at Jerez in February 2015. The car was slow, the power unit fragile, and the paddock’s worst fears for the once-mighty pairing were confirmed.
“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,’” Boullier said.
The candid admission underlines how far behind Honda really was when it re-entered the hybrid era. As Boullier tells it, the timelines were unforgiving. “Honda just weren’t ready. They had begun work on their Formula 1 project at the end of 2012. Ferrari and Renault had started in 2010 and Mercedes had started in 2009. The Honda guys were miles behind.”
It’s hard to overstate the pressure that came with the McLaren-Honda reunion. The names alone invoked Prost, Senna and title-winning dominance; the new era delivered grid penalties, retirements and a bruising reality check. Even with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button in the cockpit, there was no hiding place. McLaren and Honda ultimately split at the end of 2017. Dennis had already departed the team by then; Boullier would exit in 2018.
Time, however, has a way of remixing reputations in F1. McLaren climbed back to the top in 2024, completing a drivers’ and constructors’ championship double for the first time since 1998. Honda, too, rebuilt — spectacularly — powering Red Bull and Max Verstappen to four consecutive titles from 2021 through 2024. The same manufacturer that limped through 2015 became the hybrid era’s benchmark by the mid-2020s.
Now the story moves into its next chapter. Honda returns officially to the grid in 2026 as Aston Martin’s works power unit partner, ending a curious period in which it withdrew at the end of 2021 but continued to support Red Bull technically through to the end of 2025. The company has already teased its 2026 engine architecture, publishing images ahead of a launch event in Tokyo.
There’s a symmetry to all of this. The first turbo-hybrid cycle exposed the perils of starting late and learning in public. The next one will test who’s banked the most knowledge and who’s second-guessing the wrong details. Honda’s revival alongside Red Bull suggests the lessons were absorbed the hard way. Aston Martin will be banking on exactly that.
As for McLaren, the Boullier-Dennis exchange reads now like an origin story for the team’s modern pragmatism. The years since have been defined less by romantic reunions and more by relentless execution — and, in 2024, silverware to match.
In the end, Boullier’s anecdote isn’t just a spicy footnote. It’s a reminder that even the sharpest operators can get swept up by the promise of a famous badge and a beautiful idea. The stopwatch doesn’t care. And when Jerez happened in 2015, McLaren found out the only way F1 ever lets you know: brutally, and in public.
