FEATURE
I
f anyone ever doubted how good
Fernando Alonso really is, they
would have been enlightened
by his mighty performance during
qualifying for his home Spanish
Grand Prix.
The Spaniard endured a
frustrating Friday in which his
McLaren came to a halt after a few
corners in FP1 due to yet another
Honda failure. Then in FP2 he was
slowest of all.
Things got better in the morning
FP3 session, as he ended tenth
fastest on the timing screens.
A couple of hours later he was
simply stellar as he wrestled the
greatly under-powered and finicky
McLaren to seventh on the grid,
to a standing ovation from fans in
the stands and the amazement of
everyone in the paddock.
In Q1 Alonso was half a second
faster than his highly rated rookie
teammate Stoffel Vandoorne. By Q1
he had found another second.
“Running in the ovals maybe
I learned how to go quick on
the straights as well!” he joked
afterwards. “It was definitely a good
qualifying, P7 is a gift so we will see
what we can do from here.”
“In a way it is a surprise. We
qualified 13th as the highest this year
so [Friday] was very wrong from the
beginning, so being here in Q3 was a
surprise.”