Fernando Alonso believes McLaren has the ability to compete with Formula 1’s ‘big three’ teams “in the coming races” after a solid start to the season in Australia.
The British team was anticipated to make a significant jump in performance this season after dropping Honda engines for Renault but a troubled two weeks of testing and a failure to get a car into Q3 in Melbourne did raise questions.
They would be answered in the race though as the double world champion used a mid-race Virtual Safety Car and Haas’ problems to finish fifth ahead of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, a result Alonso claims can become more common.
“Definitely it’s going to be better and better, there’s a lot of potential in the car still to unlock,” he said ahead of this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
“I think right now they’re still clearly ahead of us, they’re in that exclusive group of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull. But McLaren is willing to enter that group and I think in the next couple of races hopefully we forget the middle group and we look forward to [joining] that privileged three top teams.
“There is potential in the car, I cannot see any reason why we should not be there in the next coming races.”
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The main niggle McLaren has faced is overcoming cooling problems as they look to push the limit on aerodynamics but Alonso is unconcerned, seeing it as part of the integration process with Renault.
“We cannot forget that we decide to switch engines very late in the season so we had to redesign some of the parts that we already made at the rear end of the car,” Alonso said.
“I think the integration between McLaren and Renault still not at 100 percent, and in the next coming races we’ll see more and more potential.”