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McLaren: Qualifying "proves progress"

14:45, 13 May 2018

byNicolás Quarles van Ufford

McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has said that the team's results in Saturday's qualifying prove the progress the team has made this season, as Fernando Alonso was the first McLaren to make it to Q3 this year, followed by Stoffel Vandoorne in P11.

The upgrades for the MCL33 were hyped up to be very big and real game-changers. The nose-job was the most visible change, but it's true that McLaren indeed looked quite a bit faster. Usually, Alonso qualifies at the top of Q2 and fought his way into the points, which makes it exciting to see what he can do now that he starts from P8.

“This qualifying result is an important validation of the immense amount of hard work that is being put in behind the scenes to move closer to the competition ahead of us," Boullier said.

"I’d especially like to thank everybody back in Woking for their tremendous team effort in bringing all the new parts we planned to complete our updated package on time.

It sounds like an acceptance speech, but Boullier knows that a good qualifying session won't get you any points.

“Of course, Saturday doesn’t offer any championship points.

"However, while not yet a cause for celebration, eighth and 11th positions on an aerodynamically-challenging track such as this mark our best qualifying session of the season so far, and is certainly the step forward we were hoping for on track to correlate with the evidence we saw in the simulation."