McLaren's executive director Zak Brown insists the team is "very committed" to engine partner Honda and that there has been "no conversation" about a future split.
Honda's disastrous start to pre-season testing prompted McLaren to approach former engine supplier Mercedes about the possibility of rekindling its partnership in the future, should the situation not improve. With a revamped V6 power unit and the removal of the restrictive token engine development system many had expected to see Honda back at the front end of the grid in 2017. Instead, Fernando Alonso said the team is last in terms of performance after the Australian Grand Prix, but Brown says McLaren is determined to work through the current problems with its current engine supplier.
"This year, clearly the start of it is a disappointment to where we thought we would be," Brown told Sky Sports F1. "We're in year three. If you go back and look at how long Mercedes, Renault, Ferrari have been in, they've got decades of head start, so this year's definitely an initial setback. But we're very committed to them, they've very committed.
"We've been to Japan a lot, they've been with us a lot. The top bosses are out again this weekend. We're all knuckling down and working super hard. There's no conversation going about quitting or going different ways."
Brown has arrived at McLaren hoping to end the team's wait for a title sponsor, something he hopes to secure by 2018.
When asked if the team can afford to stay with Honda, Brown replied: "Oh yeah, we definitely can. We definitely need things to change. We're not happy, our fans aren't happy, they're not happy. We're a team that's used to winning races and world championships, and we know this was going to be a bit of a journey.
"We would have liked to see different progress from '16 to '17, but I think we've identified, they've idenitified what the majority of the issues are, and we're working hard on them. Just to get two cars to the finish compared to what testing looked like, I think we can see in a short period of time they addressed reliability, so now we need to continue with that reliability and get some more power and they've got a plan, it's just going to take a bit of time."