McLaren-Honda still struggling for regular points
McLaren-Honda was aiming for the points in China. However, the Woking cars suffered on medium tires and were not on the pace for a top 10 finish.
The task still remains for McLaren-Honda. Neither Fernando Alonso, 12th, nor Jenson Button, 13th, were fast enough to challenge the leaders of the Grand Prix. “Today was not an easy day,” admitted Alonso after the race. “We didn’t quite have the pace to secure a good result and finish in the points. We opted for a two-stop strategy and tried to make the most of it, but the early Safety Car didn’t help us, and our race didn’t really go as planned after that.”
Fernando Alonso still hopes for the rest of the championship: « We need to closely examine the areas where we need to improve – we crossed paths with many cars this afternoon, so we should have some useful reference points that will help us gauge our respective strengths and weaknesses. »
The Spaniard was finally able to test his mount over a decent period this season: « On a more positive note, today’s race was the first clean long stint I’ve completed in this year’s car. I never managed to finish a 50-lap stint in testing, and I retired early in Melbourne due to the accident. »
Jenson Button finished close to his teammate and didn’t have an easy time either: « When the Safety Car came out, there was a lot of commotion in the pit lane because Nico [Hülkenberg] was trying to slow everyone down to help his teammate [he later received a 5-second penalty]. After that stop, we seemed to be in a solid position, but we were running with medium compounds, and we were struggling compared to other teams. We tried a two-stop strategy – which didn’t work » he regretted afterwards.
The Englishman finished the race on super-softs, in an anecdotal manner. But more than the strategy, it might be the race pace of his car that wasn’t up to par today: an eminently worrying problem.
