After having to sit out of the Bahrain Grand Prix due to injuries suffered in his mid-race crash in Melbourne, Fernando Alonso was happy to be back racing in the car today. He ended P12 ahead of his teammate who had chosen to pit ten laps before the end of the race to take a risk with the super soft tyre. Alonso rued the early safety car that was deployed on track to clear the excess debris on the track after the first lap butchery.
“Today wasn’t easy.” He admitted on the McLaren website. “We didn’t quite have the pace to record a good result and finish in the points. We chose a two-stop strategy and tried to benefit from that, but the early Safety Car didn’t help us, and our race didn’t really work out as planned after that. That’s the way it is, but it’s a shame.
“We need to look in detail at the areas in which we need to improve – we fought amongst a lot of different cars this afternoon, so we should have some useful reference points from which to gauge our respective strengths and weaknesses.”
After having sat out the second round of the championship Alonso was happy to be back in the car and complete his longest stint in McLaren’s 2016 challenger.
“On a positive note, today’s race was the first proper long run I’ve completed in this year’s car – I didn’t ever finish a 50-lap stint during testing, and I retired early in Melbourne because of the accident. There’s a long way to go, but we’ll keep improving. I’m already looking forward to the next race.”
