Alonso: McLaren has best car at Mexican GP

Fernando Alonso is adamant his McLaren is “the best car out there” in terms of chassis and aerodynamics and was left dreaming of what could have been possible in qualifying after being halted by engine grid penalties.

The two-time Formula 1 world champion produced an impressive Q1 time of 1m 17.710s to go fifth and just two-tenths off the top time in the session. Frustratingly for Alonso, that effectively called the end of his qualifying due to the 20-place engine grid penalty he has been hit with for the Mexican Grand Prix as McLaren opted not to run in Q2 to save tyres knowing it would start from the back regardless of qualifying results.

Despite being denied the chance to demonstrate McLaren’s true one lap pace, Alonso was certain his car was “the best” in terms of chassis but restrained by its Honda power unit.

“Yesterday had already been a big surprise and today was the same, since FP3 the car has been handling terrifically, there’s so much grip in the corners that allows you to drive easily and instinctively,” Alonso said.

“We went into qualifying without having done a single run on low fuel this morning. Then we got into 0.2s of the provisional pole time, so it has been a spectacular weekend for us so far.

“Unfortunately we’ve got to carry the engine grid penalty, we’ll start from the back and it will be virtually impossible to get into the points, as with these long straights it will be impossible for us to overtake.

“We’ll keep preparing for 2018 in the best possible way and today, probably for the first time this year, in these three years, we can be certain we had the best car out there.”

Having reverted to a previous Honda engine specification of 3.8, Alonso says all gains came from the car side which has laid down strong foundations ahead of its early preparations for 2018.

“The engine we had today was from the previous version, because the new one was used only on Friday and is to be kept fresh for Brazil and Abu Dhabi,” he said. “We ran with the oldest version so all the improvements come from aerodynamics and suspensions. So much that today we had the best car on track.”