Gerhard Berger has played down McLaren-Honda’s testing troubles, insisting the historic pairing will win championships again.
The Austrian great knows McLaren-Honda well, as he was famously paired with Ayrton Senna between 1990 and 1992. Firstly, he tipped Fernando Alonso to bounce back from his testing crash and eventually win titles for McLaren-Honda. “Fernando is such an experienced driver, he will deal with it (the crash) in a good way and I don’t think it’s going to have any effect on him,” he told the BBC. “He will be ready to go racing again.” 2015, however, will be a “learning year” for the reunited British-Japanese team, but Berger knows from personal experience that both sides are “extremely competent”.
“I don’t think it should matter if tests at the moment are not great or if the first races are not great. It’s normal,” said Berger. “It would be more of a surprise if Honda were competitive from day one. “I think once he (Alonso) signed up for McLaren-Honda, he knows there is going to be a learning period. I’m sure that he is going to be part of this learning,” the 55-year-old added. “Once this is done, I’m sure he wants to take all the fruits from the learning period. “Alonso has some extreme high talent in certain areas, not just in driving skills but in the way he runs the politics,” Berger said.
