Experts continue to worry about the early phase of McLaren-Honda’s new collaboration.
Honda announced its intention to return to the sport with the British team way back in May 2013, but almost two years later, the MP4-30 is struggling simply to run.
"I’m surprised that it’s not working out," former F1 driver and Swiss commentator Marc Surer told German-language t-online.de.
"Especially as the team was running with the new engine as long ago as Abu Dhabi last year. So there has been enough time for the problems to be sorted out."
Surer said one problem could be the distances involved between the UK and Japan, making "fast solutions difficult".
Also surprised is Gerhard Berger, who late in 1992 drove into the record books as the last McLaren-Honda driver to win a grand prix.
He told Osterreich newspaper that McLaren’s current problems are "quite clearly on the engine side".
"I have a feeling that they have miscalculated something," said the Austrian great.