Fernando Alonso admitted on Saturday that McLaren still had work to do improving its qualifying form – but placed his hopes in the team’s recent race performances giving them something to celebrate on Sunday.
Alonso was eliminated at the end of the second round of qualifying. He ended the session in 13th but will start Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix from 12th place, once a gearbox penalty for Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg has been applied.
“Qualifying still isn’t the strongest part of our weekend,” Alonso conceded afterwards. “This is the third time in a row where I’ve qualified 13th.
“We normally seem to score good points from that position,” he pointed out. “Hopefully tomorrow will be another one of those good days.
“A lot usually happens during a street race, and at this track in particular,” he commented. “It’s also a mentally tough race, so I think tomorrow is going to be both crazy and fun at the same time.”
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Despite struggling again in qualifying, Alonso still felt that the team had made some progress on tackling the MCL33’s basic issues.
“This weekend, we seem to have improved our top-speed compared to previous races,” he said. “But we’ve also compromised some grip in the corners.
“There’s no room for mistakes around this circuit,” he continued. “It’s very windy and dusty. The walls are very close, and you cannot push or over-drive the car.
“During Q2 the wind picked up a little, and we were losing speed along the straights due to the headwind.”
Alonso’s team mate Stoffel Vandoorne was also disappointed by how things had gone in qualifying.
Despite a late improvement on his time, Vandoorne missed out on progressing to the second round of qualifying by just over a tenth of a second. He will line up in 16th place on the Baku grid.
“It’s been a bit of a tough weekend for me,” admitted the Belgian racer, whose Friday practice sessions had been affected by yellow flags.
“Q1 was probably the first session this weekend where I finally managed to complete a quick-lap,” he sighed.
“We still lack a bit of top speed,” he said. “We really need to follow another car to benefit from their speed [with a tow], and I missed out on that on my final lap.
“In the end, I was much happier with the car,” he added. “Our race performance looks better than qualifying … I think we can pull together a good race performance tomorrow.”
“We’re looking forward to the race tomorrow,” added McLaren sporting director Eric Boullier. “There’s definitely opportunities out there for us.
“Fernando and Stoffel know how to manage their pace, pushing hard when necessary,” he said.
“Our car feels solid and dependable, particularly under braking. That should help to provide both drivers with the confidence they need to drive attacking races tomorrow.”
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