'It's not going to be a quick fix' - Brown

McLaren executive director Zak Brown fears his team is set for "a very difficult season" as a result of Honda's power unit performance.

Honda changed its concept in order to allow better development of its power unit and in an attempt to further close the gap to the other manufacturers. Pre-season testing showed the new Honda to be both uncompetitive and unreliable, and while Brown says McLaren is working hard to try and improve the situation he says it is unlikely to allow the team to recover significantly during the season.

"I want the fans to know that we are reacting," Brown (pictured, middle) told RACER during an exclusive interview. "However, it's a big challenge and it's going to look like it's moving slowly. Our coolness – not as in hip but our head down and not too emotional approach – shouldn't be mistaken for how hard everyone is working in here. So I think you may not see lots of progress the first few races because they're back-to-back, they're flyaway – we can't work miracles.

"We've been dealt not a great hand and we're all over it but it's going to take a little bit of time. So I think I would ask the McLaren fans to recognize that there's a lot of people in here working very hard and feel the same pain they do and appreciate their support and need their support. But it's not going to be a quick fix so I'm also not going to sit here and say, 'stay tuned for China, we're going to be back where we want to be.'

"It's going to be a very difficult season for us, I don't know exactly how long that will go but the whole season is going to be a challenge."

Brown expects to be fighting at the back of the grid at this weekend's Australian Grand Prix, setting a simple target of trying to get both cars to the finish of the race.

"I don't know how many races we've got there but I would be pleasantly surprised if we made it out of Q1 in Melbourne," he added. "Getting out of Q1 [would be a good result], and seeing the checkered flag. We've got speed and reliability issues so we want to see more speed and we want to see more reliability. So certainly seeing the finish of the race, given that we were only able to put together a dozen laps at any one time, would be great progress. So that would be very encouraging to see that we get our cars to the end of the weekend."