Fernando Alonso says he does not care where McLaren stacks up relative to its midfield competitors as he is only interested in challenging for grand prix victories and podiums.
McLaren-Honda endured another miserable pre-season testing campaign and looks to be the slowest team in Formula 1 along with Sauber.
Friday practice was more positive for McLaren as Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne completed 84 laps in total.
“We had some issues but in terms of the experience we had in winter testing, we have less issues than Barcelona so we were able to run a little bit more in FP1 and FP2,” Alonso explained.
“Thanks to that we extracted a little bit of the potential of the car because obviously you are testing new things every time you go out.
“So positive from that aspect but definitely there is more to come and we need to keep working as we’re still far away in terms of lap time.”
The midfield pack looks to be increasingly tight between several teams but Alonso’s belief is that if he is not fighting at the top then he is not interested who he is battling.
“I really don’t care,” Alonso said. “I don’t care about the order, I don’t care who is in the middle pack. We want to be world champions, we want to be on podiums, we want to win races and we are quite far behind.
“If we are 13th, if we are seventh, we are ninth, and there is a Renault in front of a Force India… I don’t care too much.”
