Fernando Alonso: McLaren-Honda deserves to be criticised for 2015

Fernando Alonso says he still has a "fantastic feeling" about life at McLaren but admits he and everyone else at the team deserve criticism for falling short of expectations this year.

McLaren has endured a terrible first season with Honda and arrives at the manufacturer's home grand prix at Suzuka having not scored a point since July's Hungarian Grand Prix. Alonso joined McLaren from Ferrari, a team which has now moved into the position behind Mercedes in the pecking order, with his replacement Sebastian Vettel claiming three wins this season.

Alonso understands the frustration of McLaren fans but says the team is doing all it can to make progress.

"It's difficult to take from the fan point of view, I understand, and we should be criticised for our performance because we are not delivering what people are expecting from us," Alonso told reporters in Suzuka. "But from the team point of view it's a little bit different because we cannot do much more than what we do, everyone is doing 100% of their ability.

"We need to learn lessons from everything we do. Last weekend in Singapore we had two retirements because of gearboxes overheating; we studied, we went deep into the problems, made those solutions and test them tomorrow in free practice. If we arrive at the home grand prix with a more or less competitive car is out of our hands."

With big changes to Honda's power unit not possible until the winter, Alonso says the everyone in the team - including himself - can improve to ensure McLaren goes into 2016 in the strongest shape possible.

"Everyone is doing what they can, everyone is working 24 hours a day to improve the situation in all areas because we need to improve the performance, the reliability, some of the procedures we do in the weekend, some free practice philosophies, the pit stops, as we saw in Singapore, some driver areas that we do sometimes.

"We've had some difficult free practices with minimal laps, so we go to qualifying and we have only one lap because in Q2 we don't manage to drive, so that lap is not perfect. We all need to improve - from the first mechanic to the drivers. We are in that part of the process and I will be happy at the end of the year if we keep growing that aspect here at trackside and if we keep making progress in the developing of next year's power unit and chassis."

Asked if it was difficult to process the fact McLaren was arriving at Honda's home race knowing it might not make Q2, Alonso replied: "It is not a surprise any more - this has been processed in February!"

F1 driver Fernando Alonso calls Mercedes' Singapore performance a 'mystery'

Driver says reasons for team's drop may never come to light

Mercedes' faltering performance last weekend in Singapore had many Formula One fans and insiders scratching their heads.

 

Fernando Alonso included.

 

While the McLaren driver stopped short of mentioning a conspiracy, he did offer his thoughts about the most dominant team of the last two years falling behind the pace.

 

"We have all been here many years," Alonso said Thursday in the weekly press conference. "And we have never saw (any team) being one second faster all year long and being 1.5 seconds slower for another race.

 

"This is a mystery that we will probably never understand. But this is F1. You take it or you leave it."

 

Despite the "mystery" in Singapore, Alonso said he thinks Mercedes will rebound in Japan.

 

"I think I will be surprised if this (Singapore performance) will be the normal performance of Mercedes."

 

Mercedes officials said the lack of speed was due to a tire temperature issue. 

Hamilton sets Monza pace

Lewis Hamilton retained his sizzling form to complete a practice double over Nico Rosberg ahead of Sunday's Italian Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton: Set the pace at Monza

Hamilton, 28 points ahead of Rosberg in the race for the championship, finished the opening session almost half-a-second clear of his Mercedes team-mate.

But the German, who became a father for the first time on Monday, will draw confidence from the fact that he was only 0.021 seconds shy of Hamilton's best lap of one minute 24.279 secs on Friday afternoon.

Mercedes have brought an upgraded engine with them to the high-speed Monza circuit and Hamilton and Rosberg were in a league of their own.

Indeed Sebastian Vettel, competing in his first Italian Grand Prix weekend for Ferrari in front of the partisan Tifosi, was three-quarters of a second slower than the Mercedes duo.

Force India, powered by Mercedes engines, appeared strong in opening practice and followed that up with Sergio Perez fourth and Nico Hulkenberg, who penned a new two-year contract with the team earlier this week, in fifth.

Pirelli, Formula One's sole tyre supplier, was under the spotlight in Monza after two high-profile blow-outs at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Vettel claimed he could have been killed following his penultimate lap puncture, whilst Rosberg was fortunate to emerge unscathed from a 190mph blow-out during practice.

Pirelli urged the teams to run higher tyre pressures - a concept which Hamilton claimed could have disastrous repercussions.

But Hamilton's fears did not come to fruition which will have come as great relief to the under-fire Italian tyre manufacturer.

McLaren's already difficult day took a turn for the worst during the second session when Jenson Button's running was restricted to just three laps.

After finishing ahead of only the Manor pair of Will Stevens and Roberto Merhi on Friday morning, the 2009 world champion, who will serve a five-place grid penalty, was called into the garage with a technical glitch and failed to re-emerge.

He finished over four seconds adrift of Hamilton in 19th and his team-mate Fernando Alonso fared little better. The Spaniard, slapped with a 10-place grid drop after taking on his ninth engine of the campaign here, was only 16th, albeit 2.6 sec slower than Hamilton.

McLaren will be joined at the back of the field for Sunday's race by Red Bull. Daniel Ricciardo has been penalised 25 places following an engine change and raft of new components. His team-mate Daniil Kvyat, who propped up the timings in the second session, has been hit with a 15-place grid drop.

Kimi Raikkonen was sixth for Ferrari with the Lotus pair of Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado, Williams duo Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa rounding out the top 10.

Max Verstappen survived a trip into the gravel after he lost control of his Toro Rosso under breaking for the Ascari chicane.

Mercedes develop powerful benefit after spending final engine tokens

Hamilton and Rosberg fastest through speed traps after Mercedes introduce new engines at Monza.

Lewis Hamilton set an astonishing pace in Friday morning practice at Monza

Mercedes appear to have reaped a powerful benefit from their upgraded engines after setting a shattering pace in Friday morning practice for the Italian GP.

After comprehensively dominating the first half of the campaign while using just two engines – Honda, by most glaring contrast, have already deployed nine different units – Mercedes have elected to spend their seven remaining engine development tokens at Monza, recognised as the most power-dependent circuit on the F1 calendar.

While the team have described the outlay as a 'tactical' move designed to fast-forward development for 2016, Friday morning's lap charts indicate that their new V6 engines have provided an instant and substantial boost that threatens to propel the Silvers Arrows even ahead of the field.

Not only was Lewis Hamilton, heading another Mercedes one-two and topping a timesheet for the 44th occasion this year, in excess of 1.5 seconds faster than the third-placed Sebastian Vettel, but both Mercedes cars were recorded as boasting a substantial pace advantage through Monza's all-important speed traps.

While Rosberg, powered by Mercedes' new engine, set a top speed of 352 kph, the Force India cars which were quickest through the Spa speed traps two weeks ago, but which are believed to be running the older specification Mercedes engines this weekend, were six kph slower.

Vettel, meanwhile, was 10 kph slower than Rosberg's benchmark in his Ferrari car – a vast deficit at a circuit where the majority of a lap is run at full throttle.

For the beleaguered McLaren-Honda outfit, Fernando Alonso was recorded setting a top speed of just 337.2 kph despite the introduction of new unit which has triggered yet another grid demotion for the Spaniard and his team-mate Jenson Button.

Although Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai was quoted saying before the weekend that his team's engines are now producing more horsepower than Renault's, both of the Renault-powered Red Bulls set a faster straightline speed than the McLarens on Friday morning even as they remained 15 kph shy of Mercedes' new benchmark figure.

Once again, McLaren-Honda lacked speed during practice

Unofficial top speeds during Italian GP Practice One
Rosberg, Mercedes-Mercedes, 352 kph.
Hamilton, Mercedes-Mercedes, 351.1 kph.
Perez, Force India-Mercedes, 346.4 kph.
Hulkenberg, Force India-Mercedes, 345.1 kph.
Vettel, Ferrari-Ferrari, 341.8 kph.
Maldonado, Lotus-Mercedes, 341.5 kph.
Raikkonen, Ferrari-Ferrari, 339.9 kph.
Kvyat, Red Bull-Renault, 339.0 kph.
Palmer, Lotus-Mercedes, 338.9 kph.
Ricciardo, Red Bull-Renault, 338.7 kph.
Alonso, McLaren-Honda, 337.2 kph.
Verstappen, Toro Rosso-Renault, 336.6 kph.
Button, McLaren-Honda, 336.4 kph.
Sainz, Toro Rosso-Renault, 335.9 kph.
Nasr, Sauber-Ferrari, 334.8 kph.
Massa, Williams-Mercedes 334.4 kph.
Ericsson, Sauber-Ferrari 334.3 kph.
Stevens, Manor-Ferrari, 320.5 kph.
Merhi, Manor-Ferrari, 319.7 kph.