Fernando Alonso admitted P12 on the grid for Canadian Grand Prix is not the perfect result but satisfying nevertheless knowing the limited abilities of his car.
The Spaniard had been aiming to repeat the top 10 result he achieved in Friday practice but as fellow midfield teams turned up their engines, the McLaren-Honda slipped back to where Alonso has qualified for much of the year.
The double world achieved his best lap time on his final run of Q2, the same time Daniil Kvyat hit the barriers causing a puncture, when asked whether or not the incident affected his lap time Alonso replied: “No, not really, the lap was good, lap was clean, did the maximum, happy with the performance at the end.
“Obviously P12 is not ideal to start, but with the deficit here with the power, we know how much is in terms of timed laps, being 1.2 [seconds] from Hamilton in Q2, that’s definitely a very, very good performance for us and I’m extremely happy.”
Looking forward to the race, Alonso admitted it will not be easy with the lack of power and efficiency from the power unit likely to be major obstacles.
“Well I mean there is not much you can do apart from trying to have a good exit from Turn 10 and then defend, but there are things you cannot defend, they will be side by side in the middle of the straight,” he claimed.
“Doubts for tomorrow, not only on power but fuel consumption will be very high, so we have some problems to solve but nothing we can do.”