Fernando Alonso says his drive in China was “incredible” and better than Australia

Fernando Alonso put in an incredible lap on Saturday in China to put his McLaren 13th on the grid. He had a great start to the race as he found himself in 8th position at the end of the first lap. Despite the start, Alonso had to retire. He retired on lap 31 with a drive shaft problem.

When asked about his performance, after the race, Alonso said,”Yeah, incredible! I thought Australia would be unrepeatable and here it was the same or even better. The conditions helped and so we took advantage of that. People were spinning left and right and we were gaining places more or less for free, and then when the track was damp we were keeping the pace of the best with a top speed deficit that’s pretty incredible.

I think we’d be fighting with Perez and Magnussen for the final points. I think we could have scored one or two points like in Australia in an incredible way. Because running ahead of Bottas and that he can’t overtake you for two or three laps was one of the most surreal things that have ever happened to me. He was like 300m behind me and he passed me on the straight but then I could sort of stay with him on the following lap, so it was one of the most surreal things that have happened to me.”

Both McLarens retired from the race with Stoffel Vandoorne suffering from a fuel system issue. Alonso said after the race in Australia that it might’ve been one of his best races. He now feels China was better than his race in Australia despite the fact that the Spaniard failed to finish in either of the races. McLaren’s woes continue with a variety of reliability problems. Alonso also said,”As we said in Australia having not done testing, we are discovering new problems race after race. Let’s hope we can have a normal reliability soon to be able to finish the races.” highlighting the issue that not running properly in testing is leading to a lot of problems in terms of reliability and McLaren hope they can score some points soon.