Alonso: Close battle to make it into Q3

Eighth fastest in Friday night’s practice, Fernando Alonso is anticipating a “close battle” to get into Q3 for the Singapore Grand Prix.

The double World Champion made a promising start to his Singapore weekend as he posted a 1:40.459 under the lights on Friday night.

That put him inside the top-ten in eighth place.

“It was a positive Friday,” Alonso said. “It’s always amazing to be around these streets at these speeds.

“We tried some interesting stuff, also comparing different configurations on the two cars. We gathered good information about the tyres and about the set-up changes that we were managing in both free practice sessions, and we will go through them tonight.

“I managed to get quite a good amount of laps under my belt, which on a street circuit is very important as the more running you get, the more confident you are.”

The McLaren driver covered 54 laps in Friday’s two session as McLaren spent time focusing on their qualifying pace.

He added: “It’s going to be a close battle to make it into Q3, but qualifying position is very important here so we are giving priority to our Saturdays performance.

“Track evolution we know is huge in Singapore, so you try to follow the track conditions as well, and I think our preparation for qualifying is okay.”

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