Alonso losing faith in McLaren-Honda partnership

Fernando Alonso admits it is "difficult to believe" in the McLaren-Honda partnership at the moment as he considers his next move in Formula 1.

Having returned to McLaren at the start of the renewed partnership with Honda in 2015, Alonso is now in his third season in uncompetitive machinery. The Azerbaijan Grand Prix delivered the Spaniard's first points of the year for his ninth place, but he has previously warned the team needs to be winning in September if he is to stay beyond the end of his contract, which expires this year.

Asked during an interview with AutosportME if he still believes in McLaren-Honda, Alonso replied: "It's difficult to believe now.

"The last two years and a half we didn't deliver the power we were hoping for so at least for me the time goes, and this is my last year of contract. Things need to change properly to see some signs of positive things happening. In the very short term, we need to see something that makes us believe that the project will be successful in the future."

Despite his words of warning, Alonso insists McLaren is still a positive place to be as he feels the ingredients are in place from the team's side to be successful in the near future.

"The atmosphere is good. I think the team is very united, the team wants to win. We know we're missing one part. The chassis is okay, the strategy is okay, the atmosphere is okay. But the power on the engine is not at the level we should have, so we will try to help Honda in the best way we can to keep the motivation high for them. But it has not been delivering the best results so far."

Both Alonso and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne will receive Honda's upgraded spec-three power unit in Austria, following an initial test on Alonso's car in Baku. Honda's head of F1 project Yusuke Hasegawa last week told RACER that it was important to be able to show McLaren progress with its upgraded engine, even if it doesn't yet erase the gap to the front-runners.