Fernando Alonso may not have finished this afternoon's Chinese Grand Prix, but he certainly had fun and entertained the millions of McLaren Ho0nda fans across the globe as he climbed as high as sixth at one point.
After starting 13th on the grid, the Spaniard knew that the wet weather conditions could play into their hands so he made the most of the situation while he could.
On lap two, as the circuit was rapidly drying out, the team executed the perfect ‘double shuffle', pitting Fernando and Stoffel in turn for Prime tyres. Both were then released back into the pack, and Fernando reached sixth position by lap seven before settling into seventh place for a number of laps.
Unfortunately, however, the gods of reliability were not on the team's side, and Fernando suffered a driveshaft issue causing him to have to stop out on track on lap 34.
“We started from P13 in very tricky conditions, and after a few laps we were running in sixth position. That was a big surprise and was thanks to an amazing couple of laps. I was hoping those tricky conditions would continue as other cars were spinning off here and there, and, as we said yesterday, we maximised our opportunities as we were overtaking ‘for free' at some moments.
“But then, when the track started drying out, we started to lose a little bit of ground even though we were still able to hold onto P7 for some time.
“Today we proved once more how hungry we are to get a good result, but unfortunately we're still not strong enough to finish the races. The lack of winter testing means we're paying a big price now, but hopefully we can improve quickly.
“It's a shame that neither Stoffel or I could not get to the end today, and especially painful because I was in the points, but all we can do is learn our lessons and be a little bit better in Bahrain, even though the forecast is of course for no rain…”
Now it's onto Bahrain for round three next weekend.
