Alonso: Lack of pace ‘difficult to explain’

Fernando Alonso has said it is difficult to provide a “clear answer” why McLaren were so uncompetitive in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.
Alonso maintained his perfect record in beating team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne in qualifying, but both McLaren cars struggled throughout the afternoon in Montreal.
Alonso and Vandoorne scraped themselves out of an early Q1 exit, but were clearly the slowest team in Q2 and missed out on the top-10 shoot-out by over half a second.
The lack of performance is even more concerning after fitting a new, upgraded Renault power unit in Canada, yet Alonso was unable to provide a definitive answer of what is going wrong at McLaren.
“We knew that this could be a difficult circuit for us,” Alonso conceded.
“Yesterday we felt quite competitive, the car was feeling right and we were fast. Unfortunately today we were not competitive, already we felt it in FP3 and we confirmed it in qualifying.
“We’ll see tomorrow, there’s nothing we can change now. Hopefully with a good start and good strategy, the points are still possible. That’s the clear target for tomorrow.
“I’s difficult to explain, the performance has been up and down for everybody, not only for us.
“Sometimes we try to analyse as much as we can and it’s difficult to get a clear answer.
“I think Monaco especially is a very specific circuit, and if we were more competitive there it doesn’t count.
“We know our weakness and we know we have to improve. Today is disappointing but the race is tomorrow and the points are given tomorrow so let’s attack.”