Alonso admits McLaren expectations greater than last three years
- Published on 14 Feb 2018 12:03
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- By: Fergal Walsh
Fernando Alonso says that McLaren is expecting improved results during the 2017 season compared to the last three years. The Woking squad will run with Renault power units after it announced towards the end of 2017 that it would be splitting from Honda.
In the three years that McLaren was powered by the Japanese manufacturer, it never managed a better result than sixth in the championship standings. But Alonso pointed out that Red Bull, who also have Renault units, suffered from poor reliability last year.
"We're going to be much more competitive. I don't know how much," Alonso told Spanish newspaper AS. "Last year Red Bull looked like they were going to be strong due to the change in the rules, yet they had a slow start. [Max] Verstappen was forced to retire from a few races, they had completed less laps than us halfway through the year.
"For the expectations on Red Bull, that's a big blow. You always get asked if you are going to have a good car, but if you start badly, it's a huge comedown, so we can't anticipate anything."
However, he has stated that there is a positive move in camp: "What I can say is that expectations are higher now than they have been during the past three years. The atmosphere at the factory is more positive, and everyone is determined to go that extra bit further, because we all want to be much more competitive - and I think we will be."
It's fast approaching five years since Alonso came out victorious in F1. McLaren has confirmed that the Spaniard will be the first to drive the new MCL33 in Barcelona in the first week of pre-season testing.
Fergal Walsh
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Replies (4)
Login to replyRindtchamp
Posts: 304
Would be great if he could get a podium this year.
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Thats because you guys hype it up. McLaren, my friend. I cant stand looking at you. Ever since you got addicted to the hype, things has fallen apart. Now I cant even cut a cucumber without breaking apart, recalling the trauma from getting disappointed every year since 2013. Now all you care about is the hype, and its tearing this family to pieces... I cant take it anymore!
xoya
Posts: 583
I must admit my expectations are lower for McLaren than ever before.
ajpennypacker
Posts: 2,475
Yes, McLaren have hyped things up the last few years. However, this is why I am optimistic. In 2013-2014 the team was truly in bad shape, the issues with Martin Whitmarsh, bad blood between Ron Dennis and the board, key technical people that left for Mercedes, Red Bull. No excuse for underperformance in those years. 2015 was a disaster, but it was the first year with Honda. There was significant improvement from beginning to end of the season, even if that still meant being +1.5s behind leaders. 2016 - 2017 utter embarrassment, but it clearly seemed to be down to the engine. McLaren actually did quite well on strategy, pit stops, extracting performance without engine upgrades. Everything, other than the Honda engine, seemed to be in good shape. Now in 2018, we can very reasonably expect that (1) the Renault engine will be a substantial improvement from Honda, (2) since regulations remained nearly intact, the McLaren chassis should still be at the very least decent. I heard a lot of good things about the 2017 chassis (not only from FA and Zak Brown), (3) the technical team has remained largely the same (I actually haven't heard of anyone leaving or coming in), so assuming the 2017 chassis was good, that it continues in the right direction given the regulations are similar.
That being said, I'm not taking into account several other factors, particularly the fact that others teams will also get better. But I'm still very hopeful for this year, more than in the last 3 years because I actually never believed in the Honda project.