Alonso and McLaren keen to push for Monaco points

Fernando Alonso says McLaren-Honda is keen to push and score its maiden 2015 points during this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix after the renewed alliance achieved sensible progress during its recent in-season test.

Although the double world champion did not attend the session held in Spain, team-mate Jenson Button and reserve driver Oliver Turvey gathered valuable data to foster McLaren’s recovery bid.

This positive two-day test brought some relief to the Woking-based outfit after it experienced a dismal Spanish Grand Prix weekend with Alonso retiring because of a spectacular brake failure and Button labelling his race “scary”.

“My home race in Barcelona was obviously a frustrating weekend for the whole team,” said the McLaren returnee. “We were unlucky with how my race ended and we firmly believed we could’ve achieved a positive result there.

“Our fighting spirit is still strong though, and we’re determined to take that to Monaco and see how much progress we can make there. I’m hopeful our car will perform better there than in Spain, and we’ll be pushing again to get into the points.”

A two-time Monaco Grand Prix winner, Alonso is very familiar with the extreme challenges brought by the narrow Monte Carlo streets, especially when it comes to stringing a lap together in qualifying.

While the Honda-powered MP4-30 is yet to break into Q3 this year, it has been inching closer and the Spaniard hopes he can make further strides towards a first appearance in Saturday's top-ten shootout.

“Saturday is where you can increase your chances of getting a good result from the weekend, so this will be our first objective, and I’m hopeful we can continue to strengthen our qualifying performance and improve our starting position.”

Click here for an exclusive interview with Jenson Button about the McLaren-Honda project

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