Alonso: New turbo a definite step forward

Editor

Fernando Alonso has revealed that Honda’s new turbo may not yield more power but it will allow the McLaren drivers to harvest more energy for the straights.

Ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix it was revealed that Honda had given the go-ahead to run their updated turbo, which had shown promising results on the dyno.

Both Alonso and team-mate Jenson Button will run the updated turbo in Montreal with Alonso confident that it will assist the drivers in deploying battery power for longer on the straights.

“It’s a new turbo that will allow us more harvesting from the engine, so that’s always a good thing,” he told Autosport.

“It’s not necessarily more power, but for a race situation it could help a little bit in terms of managing the battery, deploying longer on the straights.

“Not a big difference in qualifying, but hopefully for the race it will be an improvement.

“Everything is moving in the right direction, so it’s definitely another step forward for us.

“There’s still a long way to go, especially in terms of power, which is the main limitation.

“In terms of MGU-H and harvesting we are not too bad this year compared to last year, so this is obviously welcome, another step in this direction, but still a long way to go.”

The double World Champion was full of praise for the improvements McLaren-Honda have made over the past 12 months having been highly critical during last year’s Canadian GP.

“It’s pretty amazing the job the team has done in the last 12 months,” he said.

“We are now in a situation where we are able to compete, able to race with the others, and that’s a positive thing.

“Remembering here last year the situation was quite bad.

“It was race seven of the year and we had quite a few problems in terms of power, pace, reliability and fuel consumption.

“After 12 months we arrive here with a very different situation, lacking still power, of course, and some other things we need to put in place, but we are in a much better position.

“Unfortunately we were hoping for what we have now last year, and this year maybe fighting for the championship, or wins, but it is the way it is.

“At least the team has the right reaction, the right input, everything is more logical, and we can be more optimistic for the future seeing what we have now.”