'Nothing wrong with a bit of humour' - Dennis

McLaren boss Ron Dennis laughed to himself when he saw Fernando Alonso sunbathing at the Brazilian Grand Prix and is pleased his drivers can have a sense of humour.

Alonso twice stopped out on track during the race weekend at Interlagos, with the second occasion in qualifying seeing him sit in a deck chair trackside and sunbathe until the end of Q1. In an interview with the official Formula One website, Dennis insists he had no problem with his driver making light of McLaren's reliability woes.

Asked what he thought when he saw Alonso trackside, Dennis replied: "I chuckled to myself, to be honest.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of humour. And Fernando is as hard-working as he is talented, be in no doubt of that.

"He’s matured enormously since he last drove for us, eight years ago, and he’s now one of the most complete drivers I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. He has what I often refer to as the four e’s that all racing drivers should aspire to cultivate: energy, enthusiasm, expertise and experience."

And Dennis says McLaren managed to give Alonso a view of McLaren's potential at the end of the following race in Abu Dhabi by giving him maximum performance from the car late on.

"After [Abu Dhabi], Fernando was happy too. And that was because, over the last five laps, we’d switched his car’s settings to ‘full deployment’, not only so as to allow him to have a bit of on-track fun, but also so as to find out just how well our car would perform in that performance configuration. Well, the results were pretty encouraging. He carved his fastest lap on the 55-lap race’s 52nd tour - 1m 44.796s - and only two drivers bettered that all afternoon: Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.

"So, if you’re only as good as your last race, as the saying goes, then all I can say is that we’re not too bad."

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