Alonso: 'Getting both cars to the end would be a result'

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Fernando Alonso has very modest aims for this weekend's Russian Grand Prix. Just for once, he'd like to see both McLaren cars last the full race distance.

It hasn't happened so far in 2017. Stoffel Vandoorne managed to make it to the finish in Melbourne, but Alonso himself hasn't yet seen the chequered flag from the cockpit. Although classified in 14th place in Bahrain, he had already pulled into the pits by the time the race ended.

"A positive result for us in Sochi will be to finish the race with both cars," Alonso admitted. "We’ve suffered a few reliability issues over the past couple of weekends."

Alonso is still getting his head back in Formula 1 mode. He spent last weekend in the US in preparation for his Indianapolis 500 bid in May. That meant he opted out of the post-Bahrain test session at Sakhir.

McLaren drivers get Honda component update for Sochi

"I followed the test in Bahrain," he said. "I’m pleased that we were able to secure a lot of valuable data from both the car and the power unit.

"I know everyone at McLaren-Honda is working hard to put that to good use to aid our progress as quickly as possible," he added.

Even so, he admitted that it was asking a lot of the team to make significant progress in just a few days.

"The season is long, but there isn’t much time between races – especially fly-aways – for development," he agreed. However, there had been a positive finish to the test: the McLaren showed improved reliability on the second day.

"The laps we managed on the final day of the test were a big positive for us," he noted. "Hopefully [that] will be beneficial to us over the next few races."

Both McLarens will be equipped with a new Honda upgrade to the MGU-H this weekend in a bid to boost the MCL32's reliability.

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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.