this season
McLaren have "serious concerns" over whether
they can win the world championship with
engine partner Honda, says executive director
Zak Brown.
The former world champions are facing their
worst ever season after failing to register a
single point so far in 2017 after a series of
engine failures.
Brown said engine upgrades promised for
Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix were not ready
and the team is "near our limit".
"Honda's working very hard but they seem a bit
lost," he told Reuters.
"We were eagerly awaiting this upgrade as were
our drivers and it's a big disappointment that it's
not coming.
"It's not lack of effort, but they are struggling to
get it to come together."
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Brown, who replaced Ron Dennis at the McLaren
helm last year, added: "Our preference is to win
the world championship with Honda.
"But at some point you need to make a decision
as to whether that's achievable. And we have
serious concerns.
"Missing upgrades, and upgrades not delivering
to the level we were told they were going to, you
can only take that so long. And we're near our
limit.
"We're not going to go into another year like
this, in hope.
"There's lots of things that go into the decision
and we're entering that window now of 'which
way do you go when you come to the fork in the
road'."
McLaren's renewed partnership with Honda in
2015 was billed as a return to the glory days of
their collaboration in the late 1980s and early
1990s, when Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna
dominated.
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Yet McLaren remain without a race win since
2012 and their best finish this season was when
Fernando Alonso, who started seventh on the
grid, came 12th in last month's Spanish Grand
Prix.
In March it was revealed McLaren had made an
exploratory approach to Mercedes about engine
supply in the wake of problems with Honda.
And Brown again raised the prospect of McLaren
paying for engines in future.
"Do I think you can win with a customer engine?
I think you can," he said.
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