Fernando Alonso didn’t stay around long after the last Grand Prix in Spain as he had to shoot off to Indianapolis for the start of practice the following day. But he left behind him a team whose difficult season had been boosted by the former World Champion’s stunning qualifying performance.
Against all the odds Alonso qualified seventh in Barcelona, reminding everyone of his class – but also pinpointing that power unit issues aside, the McLaren MCL32 must be a pretty good chassis.
Monaco is supposed to be the best track of the year for McLaren, and on Thursday in practice Stoffel Vandoorne and substitute driver Jenson Button showed that a spot in Q3 is not impossible as they took 11th and 12th places. Perhaps a little Alonso magic would make the difference had he not got other commitments this weekend…
McLaren Technology Group COO Jonathan Neale believes that Alonso showed in Spain that the car does have potential, and that gave the troubled team some valuable encouragement.
“I think what qualifying did was give us a snapshot which validates how good the chassis is, and validates how good Fernando is,” said Neale. “Do I think the car truly warranted P7 in qualifying?
“Probably not. I think we were probably only 11 and 14, or 10 and 13, something around that. But Fernando is exceptional, and he hooked it up and did a great job. The grid is so close, there were only a few tenths between a lot of people, that class shows.
“People often say how much difference does a driver make? Well in situations like that, or at a wet Monaco, or as Jenson did at a wet Canada, you just get it right, you pick the tire strategy, those are the moments. I think it was good.”
Neale agreed that the performance was a boost for team members after a difficult season: “Fernando did an exceptional job, but you can’t do a great job round here if you haven’t got a good car under you, because it’s a pretty challenging circuit. So we feel buoyed or validated that we’ve made a real step on the chassis side.
“You could just see the smiles, and it was so nice to get the validation for the mechanics, and the aerodynamicists, because we brought quite a big package – it all worked, it stayed on the car, and there’s more to come. For the Woking team, it was just nice to see that come together.”
He stressed that the team is pushing Honda to raise its game.
“We know we’ve still got issues to resolve with the performance of the car, and we’re working on that with Honda. Honda came to Spain with a modest step forwards, but nonetheless, a step forward. We could have done without the issues that we had on Friday, but it looks like things are starting to move. I’m not making predictions. We’ve done traveling hopefully, it’s now about let’s bring the performance.
“The real issue is keep the chassis focus, keep the aerodynamics moving, and keep the pressure on our power unit performance, because you can’t be in a race when you’ve got this level of performance, so we’ve got to get back to that.”
Intriguingly he admitted that improved power unit performance could expose weaknesses in the chassis when it has to perform at a higher level.
“I don’t think that our car is currently a match for the Mercedes and the Ferrari. The issue is if you have a more powerful engine in the chassis, I suspect that it exposes other weaknesses in your chassis that you’re not currently developing. Your aero efficiency choices, your cooling choices, and your fuel saving is very different as well.
“I think that there’s more to come and more to learn. As you move up through the grid you get tested and the air gets rarefied, and the competition gets tougher. At that point when you’re in those top three or four cars, you really have to have your wits about you, and its everything – strategy, car preparation, driver preparation, all those things. At the moment we don’t need any more data to know that what we could do with is a few more kilowatts.”
Everything you need to know for the Monaco GP:
