McLaren surprised by unexpected lack of grip
McLaren had expected to be strong at Singapore, but as soon as their first runs out on the twisty track were surprised by the car's overall lack of grip. The problem is such that both drivers believed the team have a lot of work to do after Friday's practice sessions to be able to fight for a top 10 spot on the starting grid.
“Our expectations were quite high before coming here", Alonso said.
The Spaniard was boosted particularly by the pace shown at the Belgian Grand Prix, while at Monza it was Button who managed to show serious signs of improvement for the McLaren Honda cooperation.
“We’ll have to fight to get into Q3 tomorrow because I think Force India and Toro Rosso both look pretty strong around here", the Spaniard continued.
"Hopefully we can find a couple of tenths overnight so as to battle them for the final three or four top-10 positions in qualifying though.
“Our biggest problem is an overall deficit of grip – we need to find a bit more downforce for tomorrow, and then we need to make the tyres work better over a single lap. We’ll work hard to do our best to achieve those two important goals. It’s not so easy to overtake around here, so a good grid position will be important.”
Team principal Eric Boullier agreed, and underlined the difficulty of setting up a car at Singapore.
“Today wasn’t the easiest of practice days", confirmed Boullier.
"Jenson and Fernando were each affected by on-track stoppages – but, fortunately, neither failure significantly affected their running. Equally, both drivers and engineers had to work hard to dial the cars in after discovering that their initial balance wasn’t fully delivering on track.
“Singapore’s Marina Bay track is fast and unforgiving, and finding a perfect balance isn’t always easy –especially when you have to contend with the changing track and ambient conditions that occur between FP1 and FP2.
“We struggled a little today, overall, but I think we made some solid progress between the sessions and we’ve got a good direction to pursue ahead of qualifying tomorrow.”
