Alonso eyes points after strong qualifying for McLaren

Fernando Alonso picked up his best starting grid position of the season after a strong qualifying session on Saturday.

Alonso finished in seventh place. And for once, he won't be immediately demoted by penalties for new engine components this weekend.

In fact, a ten-place drop for Daniel Ricciardo means this time it's Alonso who benefits. He gets to advance one place on the grid for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix.

"Normally we cross the line and we're one of the first cars and we are always P7 or P8," Alonso told Sky Sports F1 afterwards. "But then when the radio comes it's normally P9 or P10.

"[This time] when they said still P7 and we start P6 tomorrow, I said 'Yes!' This time we start from the real position.

“I’m happy with P7 today, particularly because it was a difficult qualifying. Conditions were very tricky," he pointed out.

Alonso believes that this weekend's grid position will finally allow him to show what the MCL32 can do.

"I think we have a great chance. We are close to the points normally every Sunday in the last four or five Grands Prix, and we start at the back. So if we're sixth, things should be a little bit easier.

"It will be difficult to defend those positions," he admitted. "No doubt that Ricciardo and Hamilton will come back very strong in the race.

"Tomorrow we expect a very sunny day and completely dry conditions, so it’s not going to be easy to hold on.

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"But we saw in Mexico, I will not give up. I will try to defend whatever guy is attacking me. Hopefully we will score points.

"Being in the top ten tomorrow is our goal. Saturday has been great, let’s see what Sunday brings.”

Overall, Alonso is feeling a lot more upbeat about what the future holds since he re-signed for another year at McLaren in 2018.

"I think we are quite competitive now," he said. "We are in a good position. The car is showing great performance lately, and I think that's coming from the chassis development.

"I think now the performance on the car is growing quite quickly. I think we found a direction to develop the car."

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier shared Alonso's optimism. He declared the driver's performance to be "genuinely brilliant" on Saturday.

"He has looked fantastically committed all weekend," said Boullier. "[He] has been really flinging his car around this track with incredible passion and dedication.

"[Qualifying] was a genuine reflection of the car’s pace," he added. "Starting from sixth, and mindful of the promising pace we showed yesterday in our race simulation runs, we think he’s set for a good showing tomorrow."

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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.