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Alonso: "it was a bad surprise"

19:26, 07 Apr 2018

byJake Williams-Smith

The team found themselves eliminated from qualifying two, a result that many had not predicted.

Fernando Alonso and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne missed out on final qualifying in Bahrain by some margin. The McLaren's were not only slower than most were expecting, they were out-qualified by both Toro Rosso Honda drivers to rub salt in the wounds.

“It was definitely not a great qualifying for us, it was a bad surprise,” Alonso said. “We didn’t expect to be that far back.

“Q1 was already difficult to go through and then Q2 we were 13th, 14th. Not the positions we wanted. We felt strong yesterday in the long run so we had some hopes for tomorrow’s race. Now obviously the starting position is compromised but hopefully tomorrow we can improve the situation.”

McLaren could be in for a long night tomorrow in the desert, they were only faster than Williams and Sauber, with both teams regarded as having some of the poorest packages on the grid. It is a huge blow to McLaren after making clear to everyone that it was the Honda power unit and not the chassis that was holding the team back.

The Spaniard maintained that the team knew where they were losing out however and that the poor qualifying pace was not indicative of where the team would be come race day.

“It is very clear, we know our weakness, we know our strong points at the moment. Hopefully, it’s a matter of time, we bring the updates and we improve our weakness.

"We were not in Q3 also in Australia and both cars finished in the points so let’s wait and see for tomorrow,” he said.

“The tyre degradation is high, reliability is a concern, we saw Hamilton with a gearbox change. It’s a demanding circuit. We need to stay focused and hopefully take advantage in the strategy. We are not in Q3 so we can have a free choice of tyre, maybe that can help us.”