It was a much more action-packed in China today and McLaren made the most of the track time in FP3 to fully dial in the car ready for qualifying and the race.
Fernando Alonso completed 17 laps to provide the engineers with much-needed data to digest in the short two-hour turnaround before qualifying began.
The Spaniard had a relatively trouble-free session and was able to push the limits of the car, getting into Q2 after setting the 10th fastest time on his final flying lap. His Q2 session went smoothly and he will start tomorrow’s race in 13th place.
“I think I extracted the maximum from the car today – I was flat-out and pushed like an animal. We were pessimistic going into qualifying, after our FP3 performance had been very uncompetitive and we’d felt we had nothing left, but in quali the car picked up some pace and we were able to make it into Q2 and get 13th, which was a nice surprise.,” he said.
“For tomorrow’s race, the expected rain will help us, since in dry conditions it would be difficult to score points, but in wet conditions anything could happen. We need some chaos in the race, basically. We’ve raced here in those conditions in the past so we have to use that experience and take any opportunity that opens up in front of us. If it rains it will be a good race to watch for the fans: they’ll enjoy it and for us it’ll be fun too – if we can take our chances.”
