The McLaren team has made real progress during the past months and the seventh place of Fernando ALonso in Spa is proof, claims the double F1 world champion.
“It was an exciting race to drive and I had a good feeling throughout”, he said. “We had good pace this weekend and did better than expected on this track. The team was in the top 10 with Jenson [Button] in qualifying and we’ve scored points in the race.”
Fernando Alonso: “Believe me: a few months ago that would have been unthinkable on a circuit like this. That’s progress – real progress.”
McLaren’s driver managed to keep away from all the incidents, gained some positions thanks to the Safety car and some more when the race was red-flagged.
“We then put on fresh tyres and found ourselves in fourth place – and, better still, we had the pace to manage the situation afterwards.
Okay, we couldn’t hold back Lewis [Hamilton], Checo [Perez] or Seb [Vettel], because they were just too fast, but we had enough pace to keep Valtteri [Bottas] behind all the way to the flag.
Finally, it’s great news that we overtook Toro Rosso in the Constructors’ World Championship – I think we can be regularly in the points from now on. So, to sum up, this weekend we saw evidence of very good progress from the team. We’re moving in the right direction, that’s for sure”, Fernando Alonso explained.
Jenson Button did not finish the race after Pascal Wehrlein of Manor crashed into his car.
“We looked really good for points, so it’s disappointing that we didn’t score any, but it happens. I’ve been around long enough to know these things happen. I had a really good start. I got ahead of a Williams, pulled in front of a Red Bull and drew alongside a Force India. But then I lost a lot of places at La Source and ran wide. I rejoined the track, but Pascal made contact with me at Turn Five, damaging the rear of my car. There was a lot of damage and we were unable to complete the race”, Jenson explained.
