With significant engine penalties for both drivers, and on a circuit not best suited to the strengths of the McLaren Honda package, today's qualifying session was always going to be somewhat disappointing.
The team has placed extra emphasis on race performance, and with the weekend so far littered with incident, they are hopeful of making progress in what promises to be a long and eventful race around the streets of Baku.
Fernando Alonso set the 16th-fastest time in Q1, but will start from 20th position due to 40-place penalty for new MGU-H (6th, +10), TC (6th, +5), ICE (5th, +10), MGU-K (5th, +5), MGU-H (7th, +5) and TC (7th, +5).
“We did a good job today in terms of preparing for the race: we only used one set of tyres, put in low fuel and did some checks,” he said. “We know we're not competitive around here, but the race is going to be long and demanding. We've seen many mistakes from almost every driver, and we need to avoid making any of those tomorrow.”
“In these kinds of grands prix, we need to try and finish the race, get some data for the team, and keep developing the car. We need to make sure we keep away from the walls tomorrow. Let's also hope we can end up in the points.”
