The acrimony and disappointment, kept politically in check behind the scenes, has intensified and a stark bluntness of honesty has now replaced the cover-up attitude that preceded the inescapable divorce between McLaren and engine suppliers Honda.

Tact, the mantra of the hierarchy at hapless McLaren, has finally crumbled as an accompaniment to the split between the team once so masterful and world-beating and the Japanese engine makers who could not produce an engine as capable of winning on four wheels in Formula One as it is doing right now on two in the MotoGP title chase.

The proof is a denial of the old-fashioned belief that money can buy you anything. McLaren, now shamefaced and dumped down among the also-rans, finally — and wisely to my mind and that of millions of others — have backed out of the cul-de-sac they have found themselves in under Honda power and have switched to Renault on a three-year deal starting next season.

Never mind the loss of $100 million-a-year (Dh367 million) investment from their Far Eastern partners.

The usually tight-lipped and diplomatic team boss Eric Boullier has been unstinting in his honest summing up of the team’s setbacks.

The Frenchman said: “The past three years with Honda have been a proper disaster for us in terms of creditability and getting sponsors.

“We need to bounce back — and we will. On paper, when we joined forces, everything looked right. But the way it has turned out certainly was not. In three very intense years, it never worked.

“Luckily we have managed to make an amicable settlement. Now we must get back to where we belong — as world champions. And that, I can promise, is our aim.”

The set-up slumped to a £6 million (Dh29.5 million) loss last year — — plummeting from a £4 million profit in 2015. It is all the outcome of the rockiest spell in the team’s history.

McLaren chief Brown said: “For a combination of reasons, our partnership with Honda has not flourished as any of us would have wished. And we have not made any significant progress. We need to be more competitive.”

Embarrassingly they have not been on the podium since 2012 — a nightmare run of mishaps, breakdowns and failures with an underpowered engine that must have taken Fernando Alonso, one of the most gifted drivers of all time, to the brink of quitting.

Boullier is now confident that the 36-year-old Spanish will re-sign and he will see out his illustrious time, in F1 with McLaren. No doubt his £30 million-a-year pay packet will have some impact on his decision. Not only that, all the top teams that could have been his target — and he theirs — have completed their line-ups for next couple of seasons.

The contrast between the fortunes Alonso, facing another despairing struggle in Malaysia this weekend, and championship pacemakers Lewis Hamilton Sebastian Vettel.

Alonso may dwell on his fond memories of Sepang with three wins in 2005, 2007 and 2012 but those great moments are long gone right now.

Mercedes driver Hamilton, leading the championship by 28 points after an unexpected win last time out in Singapore, has been a winner around the 3.4-mile Sepang circuit once before, in 2014. Ferrari’s Vettel, a master of Malaysia, has won at Sepang four times.

The championship countdown is building up as a distinct thriller with three-time drivers’ champion Hamilton and four-time victor Vettel locked in a gripping battle and they are virtually certain to break Pablo Montoya’s 13-year-old lap record regularly in the 56-lap race.

Hamilton, 32, has revealed he is keen to keep on in F1 for at least another five years.

“I am enjoying my racing more than ever,” he said. “While I am getting that much fun out of it, why would I want to pack it all in? No way.”

That’s bad news for his forlorn chasers — but great for the likes of us spectators.

— The author is an expert on motorsport