Timeline: Mclaren's fall from grace in F1

4. Partnership with Renault

Mclaren Renault During the First Test at Barcelona

With Honda now out of the way. Mclaren signed up with Renault as the engine supplier and the "Rebuilding Phase" was supposed to be set in motion. Fighting for the podiums and wins by the year-end were the targets that the team set for itself and the confidence was so high that when Alonso finished P5 in the First race he proclaimed "Now we can fight" on the team radio. But bit by bit things started becoming clear. The Mclaren Renault was no match to the works team Renault or to the other Renault Customer Red Bull Racing. For once Mclaren didn't have an engine to hide behind and they got shown up pretty badly. The season is almost done and Mclaren has almost half the points of Renault and just one-sixth of the points of Red Bull. All the talks of having one of the best chassis on the grid have been thrown down the gutter and finally they have admitted that the car is actually lagging in certain fundamental areas.