McLaren hope to satisfy hungry Alonso
Spanish driver struck down by another engine failure during opening practice in Barcelona
>> BARCELONA: McLaren-Honda boss Zak Brown said he accepted Fernando Alonso’s challenge to give him a race winning car for next year, and had no concerns at him leaving the circuit to play tennis after another engine failure.
The newly-installed American told reporters at the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday that he had watched the previous day’s news conference during which two-time champion Alonso, who is taking leave from the team to miss the Monaco Grand Prix later this month and instead race in the Indianapolis 500, issued his personal ultimatum.
“Totally understand his position... He’s a two-time world champion that wants to be a three-time world champion and he’s only going to do that in a car that would win.
“As he said, he would love to stay at McLaren. We’ve given him a great environment, he really enjoys it here — we’ve got to give him a winning car.
“Sitting here today in Barcelona, it’s hard to know when that will be — other than we’ve designed lots of winning cars.
“We’ve seen other engine manufacturers make significant progress over the season, as you saw with Renault a couple of years ago, where they started and where they ended up.
“As he said, he’s going to wait until after the summer break, which is what we’ve agreed.”
Alonso said he would be open to offers for next year if by late summer he had not been convinced that McLaren-Honda could provide a winning car.
On Friday morning, in front of his home fans, he suffered another engine failure when he spun on his own oil leak before completing a lap in opening practice.
Having failed to start in Russia two weeks ago due to an engine failure on the formation lap, Alonso departed the Barcelona circuit after a few choice words and later posted a picture on Instagram of himself playing tennis.
“The engine was not good enough. We came out of the pitlane and there was a hole in the engine, and the oil was streaming out. It blew up after 400 metres,” Alonso told reporters after returning for the second 90-minute practice session.
He was last on the timesheets and reported that the engine was even slower.
If the tennis photo looked like a dig at Honda, accompanied with the seemingly sarcastic comment “keeping the body active”, he said that had not been his intention.
“I have very little time in these weeks, with travelling, with planes,” said the 35-year-old, who will go straight from Barcelona to Indianapolis tonight to prepare for his debut in the 500 on May 28.
“So when I discovered that I had two hours free, instead of being on the sofa and watching television, I went for some training. My dedication is still 100 percent to my fitness and my preparation.
“It wasn’t humour to go outside the circuit to play tennis, it was preparation. People got it wrong. I went out to have some fun and escape the circuit.” Brown laughed off the incident. “Well, his session was over,” he said. “I think you’re not going to learn a lot by watching other cars go around so obviously he wanted to get rid of some energy, built-up energy, so I don’t have any issue with that.”
McLaren, the second most successful team in Formula One history in terms of race wins, have yet to score a point in four rounds of this year’s championship and are last in the standings.