Recent McLaren progress and penalties for others should mean the first consecutive top 10 finish of the year is "guaranteed" for Fernando Alonso at the Brazilian Grand Prix, should he have a problem-free weekend.
The Spaniard scored just third points of the season two weeks ago in Mexico, losing out to a recovering Lewis Hamilton in the closing laps to fall to 10th place. That came after what even Alonso admitted was a surprisingly strong weekend for the British team, with the double world champion recovering from a grid penalty to score the final point.
Now, with no current hurdles standing in their way at Interlagos, the 36-year-old hopes the better pace continues, enabling him to show the potential of the car that he claims has been hidden due to various reasons.
“I think we need to see what the weather forecast is, how we perform in this circuit,” Fernando said cautiously at first. “Definitely there is a chance, there are may be some penalties going on for some of our competitors so it could be a good weekend to score points.
“I think lately we’ve been quite competitive and we lost big points because of reliability issues and some races we were in the points, in some others we took penalties and we start at the back and we didn’t arrive to big points either.
“I think [if] we have a good weekend, no issues on Friday, no issues on Saturday, no issues on Sunday I think the points are guaranteed. We need to deliver that result.”
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There are several comparisons that can be drawn between Interlagos and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, both have long main straights with technical infield sections and Sao Paulo is second to Mexico City in terms of altitude, even if the effects in Brazil are much less profound.
Therefore, though Alonso did confess he hoped the "best race of the year" in Mexico wasn't "circuit-specific" he was pleased with the improvements made in the second half of 2017 and was positive looking forward to the change to Renault engines next season.
“I think from Hungary onwards every step we introduced in the car was quite positive, even in Spa and Monza but because of the layout we didn’t prove it,” he claimed.
“I think we are in the right direction. Definitely, it’s still a little bit to catch the top guys, in terms also of the chassis, but I think we are optimistic, we know our strengths, and we know our weaknesses and we need to make sure that in March next year we attack all of them.”