Despite making it through to the final part of qualifying on Saturday, Fernando Alonso admitted to struggling with his pace around the Marina Bay Street Circuit, and feels that the McLaren-Honda team may struggle on race day.
Both Alonso and team-mate Jenson Button have struggled throughout the Singapore Grand Prix weekend having been confident of being strong beforehand, but the Spaniard feels they will need a strong start and a decent opening lap to be in with a chance of a good result.
“On the face of it, I’m pleased,” admitted Alonso. “Getting into Q3 was our first objective, but our next is to be competitive in the race. Nonetheless, our pace still wasn’t great today and we struggled a little – in fact, good pace hasn’t come too easily to us this weekend.
“Hopefully we can improve for tomorrow though. Race strategy will be key, and I hope things can turn around for us a bit, especially if we get a good start, attack into the first corner, and come out in a good position at the end of lap one.
“It might be a case of damage limitation in the race, but let’s see what we can do.”
