Alonso frustrated as practice stalls yet again
Mteam. The British outfit will have been desperate to make up for missed time after Alonso’s team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne broke down on three occasions on Tuesday. But fewer than two hours had passed at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya before two-time world champion Alonso stopped on track.
McLaren diagnosed the problem as an oil leak, but Alonso next emerged from his garage with only the final minutes remaining.
Alonso took his lap haul for the day to 57, but Mercedes completed 175 circuits, while Daniel Ricciardo, who set an unofficial track record to roar to the top of the timesheets, managed 165 laps for Red Bull.
McLaren have now hit trouble in four of the five days of dry-weather running at Barcelona.
A faulty wheel nut wrote off an entire morning for Alonso on the first day of testing last week, while Vandoorne did not complete any laps during the afternoon run- ning on the second day following a broken exhaust clip.
Vandoorne then had two electrical issues inside the first hour on Tuesday before a hydraulics failure cost the British team further valuable time later in the day.
McLaren, a winner of 20 combined drivers’ and team titles, finished last but one in the constructors’ championship in 2017 and have failed to win a race in six years.
They are hoping to return to the sharp end of the grid this season following their decision to split from Honda in favour of Renault power.
McLaren’s racing director Eric Boullier stressed: “It’s a new partnership with Renault. This is just testing so give us time.”
At the front, Ricciardo set the pace for Red Bull as he finished a third of a second clear of Lewis Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas, who shared the testing duties with team-mate Hamilton for Mercedes, was third in the order, while Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel finished fourth.