Alonso: Honda criticism key to improvement
Fernando Alonso believes his strong criticisms of Honda engines has helped ensure the “extreme” actions McLaren need to become competitive again.
The Spaniard could be heard raging on the television broadcast of the Japanese Grand Prix where he branded the power unit “embarrassing” and likened it to a GP2 engine which has a third less power than those in Formula One.
However, Alonso insists that, while the coverage of his outbursts were blown out of proportion, he doesn’t regret them at all.
“The actions we need to take next year to be competitive [are] quite extreme,” Alonso, who has very long odds with Paddy Power to win the title next year, told the BBC F1 review show. “For big problems you need big solutions, and I think maybe that helped a bit for the big solutions.
“A lot of radio messages they didn’t broadcast, a lot of in-laps where we were very thankful of the team because it was very difficult.
“Sometimes they change three engines, we were taking one point, two point, close to the points. A lot of positive messages they never broadcast. In Japan, when they broadcast that, probably I knew they could broadcast it.”
Alonso and team-mate Jenson Button combined to win just 27 points for McLaren in 2015. Both drivers will remain with the team next year, but Alonso admits that the poor quality of the car affected his motivation last season.
However, he is confdient the “level will be higher” in 2016 and you can bet on this and more at Paddy Power.
“In Austin, I was one of the best – for the first 20 laps in the damp conditions, eight or nine of them I was quicker than Lewis (Hamilton), who was leading the race,” he said. “But I could not keep that top level of performance consistently enough.
“Sometimes because of the lack of laps, sometimes because of mechanical problems, sometimes in the fights we are quick in the corner and very slow on the straight so you cannot maximise the pace in any of the parts of the race.
“Next year the level will be higher.”