Fernando Alonso could only qualify fourteenth on the grid for the Canadian Grand Prix on Saturday and admitted he knew Qualifying was going to be difficult for the McLaren F1 Team at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
The Spaniard struggled throughout Saturday around the Montreal track and his best time of 1:12.856s was almost half a second down on making it through to the top ten shootout, although he was able to outqualify team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne, albeit by just 0.009 seconds.
“We knew this could be a difficult circuit for us, but yesterday we felt competitive, the car was feeling good and we were fast,” said Alonso.
“Today the car was still feeling okay, but we lost that level of competitiveness. In FP3 we felt a little bit worse and less competitive and unfortunately, we confirmed in qualifying that we were not on the pace today.”
Alonso hopes to put the disappointment of Qualifying behind him on Sunday by moving forward on Sunday and challenging for the points and hopes to use a combination of overtaking and strategy to break into the top ten.
“It’s a disappointing day but the race is tomorrow, and hopefully we can recover some places with a solid start and the right strategy,” said Alonso. “This is a circuit that provides good opportunities for overtaking, and I still think points are a possible target for us.”
