McLaren completed their return to the top of the F1 pecking order in 2024 by overcoming Red Bull and Ferrari and winning the Constructors’ Championship for the first time in more than 20 years. It marks a spectacular recovery from the Woking-based outfit, who only recently found themselves running at the very back of the field. F1.com relives the rollercoaster journey…
A troubled Honda reunion
In 2013, McLaren made a decision that would inadvertently lead to one of the toughest phases in the team’s history, having signed a power unit deal with former partners Honda for 2015 and beyond to try and add to their golden era across the late-1980s and early-1990s.
READ MORE: 5 things to be excited about as F1 gears up for the 2025 season
But it soon became clear, under F1’s new and highly complex turbo-hybrid era, that the second partnership would be far more challenging – the dreams of world titles quickly turning into a nightmare of retirements, grid penalties and struggles for points.
Frustrations grew and grew through 2015, 2016 and 2017, with McLaren classifying a lowly ninth, sixth and ninth in the constructors’ standings across those respective seasons and scoring a best race finish of fifth.
It was no surprise, then, that world champion pairing Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button – who copped a record-breaking penalty of 105 places at the 2015 Belgian Grand Prix due to power unit changes – made their feelings known.
