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McLaren-Honda's Fernando Alonso drove the wheels off his McLaren in Saturday's qualifying session for the Chinese Grand Prix and somehow managed to drag his car to 13th on the grid for Sunday's race.
Over team radio, he explained he was wringing as much performance from his car despite his team's ongoing engine performance issues having an impact on the circuit's long back straight.
Alonso retired early in China: "I couldn't feel my hands and feet"
Alonso: "I looked crazy ten years ago criticizing Honda"
"Well I was flat-out in some of the corners," Alonso said. "Sometimes you don't care anymore if you have a snap or a spin or whatever. You're not very competitive.
"We felt this morning that we have a difficult weekend in front of us, we were 17th and 19th with all the power available etc., so we felt this circuit was quite difficult for us. But in qualifying, surprise surprise, everything was better than expected. 13th is a good gift."
Alonso is approaching his team's predicament with a nothing to lose attitude, and this should play into their hands with a wet race in store for Sunday.
"If it rains as predicted, there will be some chaos in the race as in all wet races, and we have to take as many risks as possible," Alonso said. "We have nothing to lose because we are not in the points. Let's try and take advantage of the situation."
Alex Griffin
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You've got to smile at Fernando. As ever, he is the 'saviour' of the situation and never mind the engineers who are probably more frustrated than he on a fraction of his salary. He is already talking his role up prior to making a jump..But, who would have him? At face value he has worked tirelessly to help improve the car and yet he has been extraordinarily rude about it and made some very disparaging comments which was bound to hurt the morale of the team. When he goes sour, the whole team becomes toxic, so personally, great driver though I think he is, I wouldn't contemplate employing him for 2018..