Fernando Alonso has hailed McLaren's updates after claiming its first Q3 appearance on Saturday for the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Spaniard will start eighth on Sunday with only Kevin Magnussen's Haas between him and the top three teams, and says the upgrades the team introduced have delivered, but warned more progress was needed in the coming races.
"Making it into Q3 for the first time this season feels fantastic, and if you combine that with the fact we are at our home grand prix, it’s a double benefit.
"I’m happy – we were P13 in the last few qualifying sessions, so P8 today is definitely a step forward.
"The top guys are still too high up so we need to close that gap, but I’m pleased that all the updates we brought here seem to be delivering as we expected. We just need new parts as soon as possible and to keep going in this direction."
Directing his attention to the race, Alonso is hoping to benefit from a "chaotic" wet race, with forecasts putting the chance of rain at 50 per cent.
"Every Spanish Grand Prix is special, and there are always a lot of emotions when you go out there and feel all the support," he said.
"The fans are not giving you extra performance because they can’t push the car, but they can motivate a little bit more so we seem to always perform a little bit better here.
"Hopefully tomorrow we’ll put on a good show for all the fans. Maybe there’ll be some rain around, and that could be very interesting. Over the winter we’ve learned that a wet track is very slippery here, so we could have a chaotic race and maybe out of any chaos we can benefit."
