Fernando Alonso and his team executed planned set-up changes on his McLaren-Honda under the blazing desert sun and in 39 degrees on Friday when between practice one and practice two a rear wing change meant he was limited to just 14 laps to finish in P8.
Practice session number two saw Alonso's car run smoothly for the entire ninety minute session where he executed his run plan to perfection and completed 31 laps, which included high-fuel running in preparation for race day, to finish 14th overall.
“It was a good Friday for us, at least on my side of the garage, as Stoffel unfortunately had a lot of problems today. I was running OK and there was some positive news from today in terms of set-up and in terms of the directions to go with the car. We're 1.5 seconds from the fastest car, which is by far the lowest gap so far. Also, we did 31 laps, which again is a lot of running,” Alonso said.
“Considering what we have in our hands, I think we are maximising our potential. I think we're moving in the right direction, but still we have a long way to go, and I hope tomorrow we can have a decent quali. We need to exploit every single lap we have on track tomorrow morning; we need to do a good qualifying and we need to attack in the race. We're still not 100 per cent confident that we're on top of our problems, so we need to keep working.”
