Failure or Success at Monaco Grand Prix Could Define McLaren-Honda's Season

McLaren head into the Monaco Grand Prix on the back of the worst start to a season in their long, proud history in Formula One.

After five races, the team that boasts 12 drivers' championships and eight constructors' titles hasn't scored a single point. Jenson Button came close in Australia, and Fernando Alonso's 11th in Bahrain looked like a promising step.

The Spaniard's display in his home race looked like another—but when he looked set to at least challenge for points, a stray visor tear-off strip lodged in his rear brake duct. As has happened far too often in 2015, he was forced to retire.

But there seems to be a renewed sense of confidence and optimism around the team as they head to the unique Circuit de Monaco.

The Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona has always been considered a good overall test of a car's abilities. There's a long straight, fast corners, medium-speed corners and—more recently introduced—some slow ones.

The McLarens qualified for the race in 14th and 15th, their best combined Saturday result of the season so far.

Jenson Button couldn't make the most of it as he endured a whole host of problems with the way his car behaved. He later revealed on the McLaren website:

My car was pretty scary to drive today: as soon as I touched the throttle, the car just snapped away from me. It was unpredictable: in low-speed corners, the car was just slow, because I got wheelspin immediately; in the high-speed stuff, it was just scary, because the rear end would snap away immediately under power.

I was talking to my engineers for most of the race to try to find out what the root of the problem was, and we switched on quite a lot of handling balance changes to try to cure it. It got a little bit better towards the end of the afternoon, but it was a pretty tough afternoon.

But Alonso had fewer problems, at least in the early laps. Benefiting from a good start, he ran comfortably in 12th before the first round of stops. He lost a couple of places when he made his own stop, but emerged in 14th—less than five seconds behind cars that eventually scored points.

His tyres were up to seven laps fresher than theirs.

From that position, he looked to have a shot at fighting for a top-10 finish at the very least. The braking issue he encountered before the halfway point put paid to this, but at least the car had shown points were possible.

This has given Alonso a shot of confidence ahead of Monaco. Speaking to Sky Sports News HQ, he said:

I think we will get points in Monaco. [In Spain] our simulations until the retirement put us in ninth place, so [that] was already the first opportunity to get the points. In Monaco it will be the second.

From now on we will always be on the limit of the 10th place for the next two or three races. Hopefully after Austria we will be more secure—seventh, eighth place I hope. That’s the target.

In theory, McLaren's chance of points in Monaco should be higher than it was in Spain. The Honda power unit pushing the MP4-30 along is, per BBC Sport's Andrew Benson, around 110 horsepower down on the field-leading Mercedes.

This should hurt more around a "normal" race track like Catalunya. The layout of Monaco, with so many slow corners and few straights, should lessen the impact of a power deficit to a reasonable degree and allow the chassis to come to the fore.

If the car was good enough to give teams like Lotus and Sauber a race around a circuit so reliant on aerodynamics and power, it should be able to do an even better job around the tight, twisty streets of Monte Carlo.

It should score points—but what if it can't?

Though a smaller team may disagree, the points themselves are irrelevant to McLaren. Echoing the sentiments of a thousand kids' football managers, it's the performance that counts.

Specifically, how they fare in qualifying and in clean-air running. Due to the slow, processional, tyre-saving nature of typical Pirelli-era Monaco grands prix, long-run practice times may actually be of more interest than race pace.

If Alonso and Button can get through to Q3 and run for much of the race in ninth and 10th, it doesn't matter if they both retire two laps from the end because they'll have proved the car is fundamentally decent.

The team and McLaren fans all over the world will be able to retain the belief that when (if?) Honda get their act together, the team will make real steps forward.

That will mean more to them than qualifying 14th and 15th and ending up with a car in 10th because four other cars broke down or crashed.

The hollow morale boost of a point or two would fade to insignificance, overshadowed by the realisation that it's far more than just a lack of power holding the team back.

It won't be a total damnation of the team's aerodynamic direction because mechanical grip—that generated by car itself, not its wings—is perhaps more important around Monaco. Here, that old favourite, "driveability," is a big factor—of both the engine and the car.

But a poor performance will show that the MP4-30 lacks some or all of the other crucial ingredients of a good car—things like balance, traction, poise and predictability.

If these failings are down to the engine, it'll prove Honda are even further away than we thought from getting their act together. If they're down to the car, it may never come good—even if Honda make the necessary steps.

After making his prediction of points in Monaco, Alonso went on to speak of the team's longer-term goals.

"The final part of the championship—even if it’s a very ambitious target, I’m very optimistic—we need to be close to the podium positions," he told Sky Sports. "The improvements and the targets on the car are to do so, so we need to make sure we deliver that."

These lofty but not 100 percent unrealistic aims will be shared by the whole team, and getting as close to them as possible is crucial if McLaren want to challenge for race wins in 2016.

The MP4-31 will, after all, be an evolution of the MP4-30, according to chief designer Peter Prodromou.

Monaco has long been a race the team have targeted—as far back as the Bahrain Grand Prix, Alonso told Motorsport.com's Adam Cooper, "Lower power effect circuits will help us at the moment. Monaco is the first circuit that we may enjoy a little bit of a better result."

If McLaren can't perform here, it will serve as proof they're even further behind than perhaps even they thought.

The impact will be felt all the way to the end of the season—and maybe beyond.