Eric Boullier says he is "extremely disappointed" by McLaren's performance at the Russian Grand Prix, as the team continued to be hampered by Formula One engine partner Honda's reliability problems.
McLaren's woeful start to 2017 continued in Sochi as the Woking-based outfit once again missed out on a points finish, leaving the team rock-bottom of the constructors' standings after four races. After receiving the first engine-related grid penalty of the season and having started from the back of the grid, Stoffel Vandoorne at least managed to take the chequered flag in 14th, while Fernando Alonso failed to even take the start, following the latest failure in his MCL32.
"You cannot hide behind a result like this," McLaren racing director Boullier said. "Finishing 14th is not why McLaren-Honda goes racing, and, believe me, we are working hard to make sure this level of performance doesn't last for long.
"That said, it's still extremely disappointing to run into reliability and performance issues during a race weekend -- we must work together to pull ourselves out of this position. Given the performance limitations he had today, Stoffel drove a very measured and efficient race, doing everything that was asked of him to look after his tyres and fuel."
Alonso, who is yet to finish a race in 2017, admitted his issue on the way to the grid on Sunday was "tough" to stomach. Boullier says he understands the Spaniard's growing frustrations and believes McLaren and Honda must resolve their issues soon.
"As for Fernando, I share his frustration," Boullier added. "It's not acceptable to start the second consecutive grand prix with only one car, and we need to address this shortcoming immediately. He is naturally disappointed, but things will get better."
Honda F1 boss Yusuke Hasegawa echoed Boullier's comments and said he remains confident Honda can make the most of upcoming power unit upgrades to improve both performance and reliability.
"We've had an incredibly difficult and ultimately disappointing weekend here in Russia," Hasegawa said. "It was a positive that Stoffel finished the race, especially in such tough conditions, starting from the back of the grid. His running was impressive and he kept consistent pace in a difficult situation with tyre and fuel management. Stoffel hasn't had an easy start to the season with many issues during each race weekend, so we're happy that he finally took the chequered flag, albeit in P14 which is of course not where we want to be.
"Fernando lost the power from his deployment with the system failure of ERS during the formation lap. Although we tried to fix it by rebooting the system while running, we weren't able to recover it. As a result, we had to stop the car out on the track and were unable to start the race. We'll be investigating the cause of the system failure.
"It's a big disappointment for us that we're not able to complete the race with both drivers," he added. "But we will move forwards from this and keep pushing. We're expecting some updates to the PU over the next few races, and we'll continue working on our development in order to be more competitive with better reliability."