McLaren F1's Eric Boullier has revealed that although it took until last weekend's Singapore Grand Prix to announce that they were cutting ties with engine supplier Honda, the thought process to do so was already there before the 2017 season got underway with preseason testing already showing the Woking based squad that the power plant was not going to live up to expectations for what would be a third year in succession.

Speaking to the official F1 website, Boullier explained that discussions with other engine manufacturers were taking place behind the scenes, something F1 pundits knew about but at one stage thought that Mercedes was going to work with Honda to help improve their engine. They couldn't have been further from the truth…

“The crucial moment was after the Barcelona testing, when we tried to work and help Honda to improve the situation in a very short time, including having discussions with the other engine manufacturers and without going into details, it became obvious that they again would miss the target that we had agreed for the season,” Boullier said. "Then by the summer we knew that we had to take a decision, to stay or not to stay. I can't say a date, but there had been a couple of targets missed by summer."

Although the Woking based squad wanted to see it through with Honda, they knew that it was seriously hurting their credibility to retire race after race and finish at the back, taking grid penalty after grid penalty for new engines. Something had to happen and fast before their reputation as a top team was tarnished forever.

"When you look at the last three years it's been a proper disaster for us in terms of credibility and getting new sponsors and then you have to take the long-term view: in the next five years I am absolutely sure that we will go back to where McLaren belongs. And with this bouncing back we get our credibility back and it will rebuild our sponsor portfolio. It might take two to three years.”

"We are ninth in the championship - with a top engine I think we would be fourth right now and just on the FOM money we could cover the engine side, so it will not be a big risk on the monetary side. Thanks to the shareholders who have been brave enough to take a sporting choice and not hurt McLaren. They could have said, 'Let's wait until Honda wakes up'”