Fernando Alonso just had his best qualifying of the 2018 season, securing P8 for raceday tomorrow.
McLaren’s ‘real MCL33’ was supposed to make an appearance in Barcelona, and it did so in grand fashion, providing Alonso with that impetus that he had been searching for all season.
However, Alonso wasn’t all smiles after the result, as he felt that the gap from the top 3 teams might have actually widened.
“It was a good qualy, so I’m very happy, without a doubt,” said Alonso.
“We had been P13 three times in a row and today we took that step forward we needed.
“I’m happy with this step forward. Now we need another to get close to the top teams. At least the positive note is that everything we brought for the car works as expected. Now we need to bring more things as quickly as possible.
“Probably the downside of this position is still the gap, with the top six, they are in another league. And we need to keep chasing and closing that gap race after race.” he added.
He also emphasised on the fact that this package should have been available in Australia, and that the team is behind schedule.
“This package is making me happy. In another way, this car, is supposed to be the Australian Grand Prix package,” he told Sky.
“That delay, on the first improvement, and having it not at the first races, having it here, probably put us in a difficult position in the first races.
“We saved them with a lot of points on Sundays with a little bit of luck and good races, but now we need to push the development and we need to bring new parts every single race.”
Alonso though will have to start on supersofts, as he set his fastest time during Q2 with them.
“The mediums work well and the yellow ones too, maybe better than the reds, and I think tomorrow they will be everybody’s favourite,” he said.
“I have to start with the reds because I did Q2 with the reds, but if it rains tomorrow we’ll all start with intermediates or wets and everything that happened today doesn’t count much.” he concluded.
