Alonso has 'high hopes' McLaren will continue momentum

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Fernando Alonso says McLaren has "high hopes" it can continue its recent momentum at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.

McLaren scored its first double-points finish of the season in Russia with Alonso finishing sixth and team-mate Jenson Button in tenth. With Sochi following Shanghai as two of the more power-sensitive tracks, Alonso says the upcoming circuits should allow McLaren to build on that result.

"I think the car is improving and we are getting more and more competitive in the races," Alonso said. "I think the next grand prix will be a good one for us, so here in Barcelona, Monaco, even Canada should be a little bit better than what we did in China and in Russia in terms of layout.

"Yeah, we have some high hopes for us at the moment to keep this momentum and keep growing together to more competitive positions and yeah, I think we have some updates for this race in terms of aerodynamics, most of them. We’ll see how the weekend goes but we are probably much more optimistic than one month ago."

Ahead of his home race, Alonso says the popularity of F1 has definitely dropped in Spain but remains at a good level.

"I think it’s still OK. Definitely it’s a little bit lower than 2005-6-7 when we had a 45 minutes queue to come into the circuit. It’s still quite high and I think the people are still loving the sport – but definitely there is a little bit less enthusiasm about the races because with the television not being available for everyone, just with a pay channel etcetera, probably is a little bit less viewers, a little bit less media attention. But I think we have good days and it’s still quite popular."

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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.