Alonso Defends McLaren amid Media Criticism

F1 double world champion Fernando Alonso believes that the media has been unfair in its criticism of McLaren. Especially during their difficult French Grand Prix weekend where the team struggled. He pointed out that the team is not the worst on the 2018 grid.

McLaren failed to progress beyond Q1 and then finished low down the order. What didn’t help their case were reports of a factory in disarray. It was an allegation that the team vehemently denied.

What really came as a slap in the face was the competitiveness of engine supplier Renault’s factory team and its other customer outfit, Red Bull.

Alonso spoke about whether Paul Ricard’s result took away a chunk of confidence. He said: “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, and everything is exaggerated, especially in Formula One 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 was in a foul mood and even interrupted a journalist when he tried to remind the Spaniard of McLaren’s Honda criticisms.

“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.”