McLaren's racing director Eric Boullier says the team has unwavering faith in Honda turning around its current unreliable and under-power engines to be competitive which is maintaining the motivation for the entire team.

McLaren-Honda has endured a nightmare start to 2017 after fundamental problems were uncovered with the Japanese manufacturer's new power unit during pre-season testing.

After hasty revisions and further issues, the Woking-based team has failed to challenge in the opening four rounds and has only seen a MCL32 reach the chequered flag twice (Stoffel Vandoorne in Australia and Russia).

Vandoorne is already through a number of power unit component allocations for the entire season and started picking up grid penalties in Russia in just the fourth race of the season, while Alonso suffered an engine issue which meant he failed to start the Russian GP.

Boullier says these knocks haven't damaged the team's motivation for the rest of the 2017 Formula 1 championship and is confident of McLaren-Honda saving its season in the future, even if he isn't sure when.

"In terms of trying to keep people motivated, it's just how you put the targets," Boullier said. "We are transparent and we are just honest with people, they are aware of everything and then you have to also make sure people are looking at what they are doing to try to be the best.

"We have a great team of people in Woking who understand this and when we say we have to be the best ourselves before we see the global picture. We have our partner Honda doing the same and we have to work as hard as possible to make sure we will catch up.

"I've got great faith in that we will be much better this year, I don't know exactly when yet, but I have started to develop better faith, let's say, in this hope."

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