Alonso puts it on the limit in 'best qualifying of the year'

Whether he was genuinely impressed with his result or using a bit of self-persuasion, Fernando Alonso labeled his P13 qualifying effort at Silverstone as his "best ever" performance of the year.

On the surface, Alonso qualifying outside of the top ten and well ahead of team mate Stoffel Vandoorne appears as fairly routine for the McLaren driver.

The Spaniard however saw his Saturday afternoon in a very different light, telling Spanish TV his fastest lap in Q2 was "beyond the limit".

"I think today was without a doubt the best qualifying of the year and the best weekend overall," he said.

"All of Saturday has gone well and we were very competitive given our possibilities, obviously. So I'm happy and hopefully tomorrow we can score some points.

• Hamilton takes record sixth pole at Silverstone

"The position is more or less the same as always, but it's a long track with a lot of downforce demands.

"We knew the problems we could have here so I think we managed to pull a complicated qualifying through with a good position and starting from the clean side."

Alonso reined in his enthusiasm a bit however, reminding his fans that McLaren's level of performance will remain capped at least until new updates find their way on the team's MCL33.

"Overall, I'm happy, but we know our limitations, which are the same as in France and Austria, because the cars are still the same," he said.

"Hopefully in Hockenheim we can have some updates and in Hungary again. We know we still need some tenths to be up there with Haas and even Sauber, which is now at Haas' level."

Commenting on Charles Lelerc's Sauber now regularly running ahead of McLaren, Alonso mischievously said: "It's three Ferraris on track now!"

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