The Spaniard and his team-mate Jenson Button were 11th and 12 fastest respectively in FP1 while Alonso improved to eighth place in the second session with the second McLaren again down in 12th. He was unable to return to the track and will start the race from 15th position on the grid.
Advertisement
Button qualified in 16th place after losing power near the end of Q1, while racing director Eric Boullier said “a harness connection coming loose” led to Alonso’s problem. Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to continue in qualifying if the vehicle doesn’t make it back to the pits under its own power, so that was that.
Fernando Alonso (Q2 15th overall No time): “This afternoon was a pity, because it’s been a good weekend for the team so far: we’d made some useful performance steps, and had regularly been in the top 10 in the sessions, so the problems we had in qualifying were extremely unfortunate”. The last time I felt it was this good was in Monaco, so that’s promising and hopefully we can have a reasonable weekend.
“Jenson had a problem with the KERS and for me the vehicle switched off. Not the right time!”
He is quoted as saying by Autosport: “We got the best out of the vehicle in qualifying, in terms of the balance of the auto it felt good, but I didn’t have any deployment all the way down the straight”.
“Our high-fuel runs were reasonably positive today, so I think we’ve got a good foundation beneath us”.
The two-time drivers’ champion has not challenged for the F1 title in the past two seasons, and is enduring his worst campaign in 2015 – with just one point from eight race starts in his first season back at McLaren.
“In free practice sometimes the auto arrives, even on the crane, and you are able to restart, so I thought it was possible”.
Advertisement
“Nonetheless, tomorrow is another day – and, despite the fact that the Hungaroring is a notoriously inexpedient circuit on which to overtake, both Fernando and Jenson will be doing their level best to do just that, and thereby move forward through the field”. “There’s been absolutely no let-up on the technical side – having personally seen the effort that’s been going on at MTC, and heard about the work that’s being done at Sakura, I know we’re slowly but surely getting there. If I did, I would probably have parked the vehicle before and not pushed”.
