Fernando Alonso reckons Formula 1’s media pack are “exaggerating” McLaren’s recent problems in the championship.
McLaren has not scored a point since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, slipping behind Renault in the standings, while neither Alonso nor Stoffel Vandoorne made it through to Q2 in France.
Only Williams was slower than McLaren in qualifying while in race trim Vandoorne took 12th, while Alonso retired while running towards the back of the field.
Alonso, though, reckons McLaren’s plight is nowhere near as bad as is being made out.
“A weekend like that, the only problem is the media attention it attracts and the lack of normal conversation goes into the bad news or good news,” he said.
“Everything is exaggerated, especially in Formula 1 with all the polemics and all the things you need to sell every week.
“We had a quite poor weekend in terms of performance, uncompetitive on Friday, uncompetitive on Saturday, uncompetitive on Sunday.
“We are the first ones to know that, and we want to improve that. At the same time, we are not last. We are not getting worse and worse. We are not the worst team in the paddock. We are not these things that we’ve been hearing for the last three days.
“We are fifth in the constructors’ championship, I’m eighth in the drivers’ championship. All the other ones that are doing a perfect season, they are behind us, so maybe they are not so perfect and we are not so bad.
“We understand we have been uncompetitive, and we are the first ones that we want to improve that.”
Alonso once again emphasised McLaren’s year-on-year situation, commenting: “we had zero points last season, and now we have fifth in the constructors’ championship and eighth in the drivers’ championship.
“So again, the situation changed a lot and improved a lot.
“We are not where we want to be, and we want to improve. We want to fight for podiums, we want to fight for championships.
“We were thinking this year could be that transition to be close to the podiums and close to the Red Bull performance, and we are not.
“We realise that, and we accept that we need to improve. If this was the season to improve, yes, it was, and we did improve massively. 400 or 500 percent more points than last year, so we are doing what we can.”
