Fernando Alonso experienced a tumultuous race: a victim of the opening incidents, the Spaniard nonetheless glimpsed the 5th place a few laps before the finish… before a problem with his Honda engine brought him back to reality. He finished outside the points, in 11th place.<\/p>\n
Despite everything, Fernando Alonso claims to have delivered one of the best races of his career. Finding himself a minute behind the penultimate car on the second lap, and then racing to be as well placed as 5th with ten laps remaining was truly a feat. After such a comeback, it was a shame to encounter a mechanical problem in the last laps, which prevented us from staying in the fight.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard benefited from the new Honda Power Unit. While it provides an additional twenty horsepower, its reliability unfortunately still needs work… On the contrary, Jenson Button, a bit slower without the Honda upgrade but more reliable than his teammate, delivered a race full of experience to cross the line in 7th place. He would finish 6th after the five-second penalty given to Carlos Sainz.<\/p>\n
The 2009 world champion delivered his best performance of the season: \u00ab It was a strategic race, and we delivered a perfect race. The team should be very happy with what we have accomplished; we came back at the right time every time, but we still need to address our lack of performance \u00bb he confided after the race.<\/p>\n
The Englishman suffered more on the dry than on the wet track: \u00ab In the early laps, I really took full advantage of the drying track conditions, and I felt capable of making a bit of a difference. (\u2026) But once the track dried and everyone knew where to brake, it became much more difficult for us. We really couldn’t match the pace of the other cars. \u00bb<\/p>\n
After the race, Eric Boullier, the Race Director, highlighted the work of Jenson Button: \u00ab As always, in these topsy-turvy races, Jenson skillfully managed the conditions, avoiding all the traps despite the tricky conditions and calmly making his way through the pack. \u00bb<\/p>\n
Yasuhisa Arai, the head of Honda’s engine at McLaren, stated that the engine improvements were nonetheless satisfactory: \u00ab Fernando’s car was quite competitive during the majority of the race, thanks to both his talent and the new engine specification, which met our expectations throughout the weekend. \u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The feelings were mixed at McLaren-Honda after the United States Grand Prix: Jenson Button, despite a disappointing pace in dry conditions, managed to score eight points with a 6th place finish. On the other hand, Fernando Alonso, let down by the new Honda engine, had to give up his 5th place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":39275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[360,698,947],"class_list":["post-12834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-alonso","tag-button","tag-mclaren"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n