Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Alonso pushing McLaren on

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Fernando Alonso’s motivation levels will help push McLaren on, according to the team’s engineering director Matt Morris.

McLaren endured a difficult opening pre-season test at Jerez, with the new Honda-powered MP4-30 completing just 79 laps over the four days. With Alonso joining from Ferrari and having failed to add to the second of his two championships which he won in 2006, Morris says the motivation is clear to see and has a positive impact on the rest of the team at McLaren.

“Fernando has been absolutely itching to get in the car over the last few months,” Morris said. “I think [Jerez was] a frustrating few days for him, but he’s happy. I think he’s going to push us on as a team.

“Just his motivation levels when he’s in the garage, when he’s in the office and in the simulator is massively high and that sort of knocks on to everybody else really. It pushes everybody else on, so we’re really looking forward to this year.”

Alonso will drive the MP4-30 on Saturday and Sunday of the second test at the Circuit de Catalunya, with Jenson Button driving on the opening two days.

Feature: A closer look at the McLaren MP4-30

Click here for the full final day gallery from the Jerez test

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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.