Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Spa will be tricky for McLaren - Alonso

Fernando Alonso says "Spa will be tricky" for McLaren despite an updated power unit for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Honda has been working on improving the combustion characteristics of its power unit, with motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai telling F1i it should result in a big step forward in Belgium. However, with Arai also wary of grid penalties, Alonso is keen to keep expectations low heading to the high-speed Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

"Spa will be tricky for us, due to the configuration of a track that requires power, downforce and a big chunk of the lap spent at full throttle," Alonso said. "But, from a driver's perspective it's a spectacular circuit and the fans there also make it a truly special place.

"It's a place at which I won when I was in Formula 3000, but never in Formula 1. I've enjoyed some really exciting battles there, and I'm looking forward to this weekend for some more."

And Alonso says he will be satisfied if he can feel progress with the MP4-30 and Honda power unit even if it is unlikely to lead to an improvement in results.

"The next few races will be important for us: we need to continue our forward momentum, and, with the addition of some tweaks to the car and power unit, we will be looking for more progress and good correlation between the simulator and our on-track performance. That might not necessarily appear above the surface in either Spa or Monza, but we'll keep pushing development forward at each race."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.