Home race always an exciting prospect for Alonso

After his initial run last week at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Fernando Alonso will fall back into his F1 painful routine for his home Grand Prix at Barcelona.

While racing on home turf always provides an extra dose of motivation, it should hardly help the McLaren driver's cause as his team continues to struggle with Honda's engine persisting engine woes.

Despite the troubles and negative outlook, Alonso is still looking forward to his weekend at the Circuit de Catalunya.

"I’m really excited about returning to Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix," he said in the team's preview.

"It’s my home race, I’ve had some great times there, and the atmosphere is always crazy. We spend a lot of time there in pre-season testing, but there’s nothing quite like the emotion of racing there in front of your home fans. It’s a very special feeling."

• Vandoorne 'expected' grid penalties to arrive early

The future Indy 500 runner is guarded however over his prospects in Spain with progress on the engine front unlikely.

"After a run of difficult races for us, I’m not sure what we can expect from this weekend. We’re expecting some various new parts – which we bring to every race – but we can’t really focus too much on performance until we have solved our reliability issues. That’s always our focus.

"I know the team is working extremely hard to get to the bottom of our recent problems, and I am hopeful we can have a smooth race and a weekend with very few issues.

"For me, qualifying has been an exciting session in the past few races and I hope we can repeat that in Barcelona, but the most important thing will be to maximise whatever grid slot we achieve on Saturday, on race day."

GALLERY: Alonso's Indy 500 challenger

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter