Fernando Alonso has called for a “deep investigation” into what caused team-mate Jenson Button’s car to stop during practice and qualifying this weekend.
Button failed to set a single timed lap in FP1 and managed just a handful in FP2 after his McLaren stopped both times. Heading into qualifying and the problem hit again, meaning he’ll start last.
Alonso understands that it will take time to overcome, but says such recurring problems simply aren’t good enough at this stage.
“Definitely this is a concern at the moment. Reliability is not good enough and we know we need to improve,” he is quoted as saying.
“We need to go very deep in the investigation of Jenson’s car because there have been too many problems this weekend and it is not good.
“It is the way it is. We are not happy with the situation but we are facing reliability problems and performance problems – there are too many things.”
Despite the disappointment on Button’s side, Alonso qualified 14th to escape Q1 for the first time this season and described it as a “nice surprise”.
“We’ve made a step forward, performance-wise; everything appears to be going in the right direction,” he said.
“This weekend has been a nice surprise so far – and the car felt better again today.
“Of course, we’ll never be happy that our qualifying effort ran out in Q2, but it’s a step forward, and the whole team will and should enjoy this result because they’ve been working so hard to achieve it.”
