A slight improvement for Alonso and McLaren in Bahrain
McLaren is starting to turn things around as Fernando Alonso managed to reach Q2 for the first time this season, finishing 14th. As for Jenson Button, he couldn't record a time and will start last.
The Spaniard was thus continuing his positive communication strategy despite results falling well short of the expectations raised by the return of the McLaren-Honda partnership. He wants to focus on the positive aspect, having reached Q2, without dwelling on an ultimately modest final result: « This weekend has been a nice surprise so far, and the car seemed better today. We’ve taken a step forward in terms of performance. Everything seems to be moving in the right direction. Obviously, we will never be happy finishing our qualifying in Q2, but it’s a step forward. The whole team should be pleased with this result because they worked so hard to achieve it. »
In this context, ambitions can only be limited for the race: « Tomorrow (today), the goal will be to finish the race and bring both cars to the finish line. »
The reliability problems are indeed not over, as demonstrated by Jenson Button’s new mishap: « In qualifying, I don’t really know what happened. It seemed like Friday morning when everything shut down in the car. There was a loud noise, I pulled over and got out of the car. We’ve had a few problems this weekend, but the important thing is that we are improving. »
