24 hours ago, one would think that McLaren are in for another lacklustre weekend. But come qualifying, something happened to Fernando Alonso’s car, which would change everything. While teammate Stoffel Vandoorne went out in the first knockout session of the Spanish GP, Alonso managed to scrape through and survive the two knockout sessions to end up in the top 10 shootout session. Then the unthinkable happened, The 2-time world champion took the MCL32 by the scruff of the neck and somehow dragged it to P7. He believes that the Woking squad are now behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull with regard to performance.

“We are happy with the chassis side but we are still not the best. There is still work to do – aerodynamically and mechanically – to be at the level of Mercedes and Ferrari. They are definitely ahead of everyone but we could be right behind them in terms of the chassis.” said the Spaniard. “This is the fourth or fifth lowest track [for power sensitive] and we benefited from that, We executed qualifying well and I felt confident in the car. We knew that with one tenth between three or here we had to put a perfect lap together and today was one of those days when everything came together.”

Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms went into overdrive following Alonso’s feat. But Alonso and McLaren are not getting ahead of themselves. In the speed trap, Alonso and Vandoorne were 19th and 20th respectively. McLaren have yet to score and point and Alonso has yet to finish a race.

What fate awaits them tomorrow remains a mystery. But here’s hoping that they will have a decent result and finally get the monkey off their backs.