Alonso predicts ‘big points’ for McLaren despite Q2 exit

Fernando Alonso is expecting to challenge for a top-five finish at the Australian Grand Prix, despite McLaren only being 11th and 12th in qualifying. 

Both Alonso and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne had occupied top 10 positions during Friday practice, but the pair failed to progress into the into the final segment of qualifying following a tight battle with Renault and Haas to make Q3. 

The Spaniard admitted he made mistakes on his final flying lap in Q2, but remains confident McLaren can make progress in its first F1 race with Renault engines on Sunday in Melbourne. 

“Definitely there is a little bit more time but if you analyse everyone's lap and you put every perfect corner, you make an ideal lap it's quite difficult to get," Alonso explained. "I obviously could maybe be in Q3 but I am happy where I am - I deserve to be P11 today, it's still a very good result in my opinion.

"The performance of the car has been going good all weekend long, you arrive from winter testing and you want to know where you are exactly in terms of pace compared to opponents. We discovered that the car was well balanced and competitive from FP1, especially in damp conditions this morning it was quite competitive as well.

"This is a very, very good baseline for the rest of the season despite the result you can get today. It is good, the points are given tomorrow... big points are coming for us tomorrow, I'm sure. This is a very good start for a new season.”

When asked to clarify whether his “big points” prediction meant finishing around seventh or sixth, he replied: "Hopefully better.”

Alonso admitted he did not extract the full potential of his MCL33 in qualifying but believes McLaren will be quicker over long runs. 

"I think the race pace is a little bit better than the qualifying pace, that's what we saw on Friday. And then maybe today our position is a little lower than the performance in the car because we didn't optimise the laps. We'll see.

"Last year we saw seven retirements here so I expect the nine cars in front of us... maybe not all of them will finish. There are some interesting battles there in front of us so we need to stay calm, stay focused, finish the race and with the performance we have in the car. If we need deliver tomorrow that's part of the race."