Honda: USGP result regains momentum for McLaren

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Honda's head of F1 project Yusuke Hasegawa says a double points finish in the United States Grand Prix regained some lost momentum for McLaren.

After encouraging performances in the second half of the season - including a run of scoring points in five out of six races ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix - McLaren's performance was poor at Suzuka as both cars finished outside the top 15 places.

However, Austin saw Fernando Alonso take fifth place and Jenson Button come home ninth and Hasegawa says the result regains some of the momentum from recent races which was in danger of being lost after Japan.

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"It was a good United States Grand Prix for us," Hasegawa said. "Before the start it was extremely difficult for us to predict where we would be at the end of the race based on the qualifying results, but we knew that our race pace would be better and stable.

"Both of our drivers proved why they’re worthy world champions. It was good to see such strong driving, and undying racing spirit from both. Fernando pushed hard until the last lap, enabling him to finish in P5 behind the Ferrari, and a brilliant push from Jenson saw him gain 10 places to finish in P9.

"A double points finish is a great result to bring momentum back to the team."

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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.