Fernando Alonso admits the season-opening Australian Grand Prix will be McLaren’s lowest point of the season but expects a stronger package by the second half of 2018.
The Woking-based outfit switched to Renault power this season in a bid to return to the sharp end of the pecking order following three difficult years with Honda.
However, pre-season testing revealed McLaren is still suffering on the reliability front compared to its rivals, leaving the team in the dark as to how competitive it will be this weekend.
“This weekend will be our lowest level,” Alonso said. “We will be the team that will progress [the most] relative to other teams, just because the integration to a new power unit will require time.
“The chassis has been designed and the season programmed with many updates that will come very soon, in the first couple of races. What we see here is going to be important, yes, but we will be better and better. I expect the second half of the season, for example, a very strong McLaren.
“I understand that we are not at the level of Mercedes now or the level of Red Bull or Ferrari – or that’s what we think after winter testing – so we are not in that leading group yet. But we should be there in a couple of races time or in the second part of the championship or something, because we are McLaren so we should be there.
“In 2012 [Ferrari] were not in that group either and we were leading the championship in the last race so we will see what happens this year.”
Reflecting on a difficult winter for the team, Alonso assured the issues affecting its testing programme had been resolved and remains optimistic McLaren can be in the fight for regular points finishes.
“I think it didn’t change anything in Barcelona,” he added. “We had some up and downs in testing, some reliability issues on a couple of days, all of those issues are now fixed. They are not a difficult solutions but you need time at the factory, the cars are new in February.
“The test I think is wrong because there is two consecutive weeks of testing, so if you have something to re-design on parts of the car, you have to wait until after the test.
“So that’s what we did. We tried to do all the programme in Barcelona and then in the factory fix some of the things we discovered in testing. We should be ready and the feelings I had before Barcelona, or the feelings I have now, are the same.
“It should be a good season for us, getting back to the positions we enjoy a bit more. Hopefully 100% in Q3, regularly in the points, fighting in the top five, hopefully close to the podium in some races.
“We saw last year one Williams took a podium in Baku, the Force Indias were close to a couple of podiums in the year so we know the opportunities will come and in those opportunities we will deliver hopefully.”
