Fernando Alonso says 11th place on the grid for the Mexican Grand Prix is the “best possible position” McLaren could’ve dreamed of.
The team has showed decent speed throughout the weekend, although Alonso admits a little ground has been lost compared to previous races.
Being the first qualifier to be eliminated in Q2 means Alonso will start from the highest position where drivers have free tyre choice.
“I think 11th place was probably the best possible position we could dream of in terms of race strategy, as we’ll have free choice of tyres for the race start and we’ll be on the clean side of the track,” he explained.
“So you could say that many things went our way. Unfortunately, however, we aren’t quick enough here.
“A few races ago we were routinely making it into Q3 and then fighting for seventh or eighth position, which is good, but here we’re fighting for ninth or 10th position – so, that being the case, we’d rather be in 11th position.
“But, that’s a side-issue really: more important is that we need to understand why we’re slightly struggling for pace here.
“Tyre degradation, which will be the key factor, has been different from team to team, from set to set and also from day to day, so I think tomorrow we’ll all be going into a slightly unknown situation.
“So we’ll need to be very flexible and open to strategies, and then we’ll see what we can do. Avoiding traffic will be one of the priorities, since we’ll have a free tyre choice.”
