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Alonso concedes Q3 in Baku will be difficult

Alonso concedes Q3 in Baku will be "difficult"

26-04-2018 16:24

Fernando Alonso has not reached the third part of a qualifying session this season, and the Spaniard admits that he and McLaren will find Saturday tougher than previous qualifying sessions.

Alonso sits in sixth after a solid start to the season, scoring points at each other the three races so far.

He is joint with Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg as the driver outside of the big three teams to have scored the most points, with 22.

McLaren’s major weakness this season has been their lack of straight-line speed, and Baku has an extremely long one, so McLaren and Alonso fear that they could lose out on that part of the track.

Alonso said: “Obviously we had some limitations on the power side, but it seems that this year we still have quite a slow car on the straights.”

Alonso and team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne have been guilty of putting themselves on the backfoot ahead of races this year by not reaching Q3. Each time they have scored points, they have had to cut through the field to reach the top ten.

Alonso is targeting Q3 this weekend, but knows Baku is not McLaren’s best chance of reaching the final part of qualifying: “We’ve never been in Q3 so far this year. I think it’s going to be difficult again this weekend, but hopefully we are a little bit closer.”