Alonso Still Committed to Winning

[Bethonie Waring]

McLaren Honda’s Fernando Alonso is still “100% committed to winning”, though he remains realistic about the team’s chances in 2017.

After two frustrating seasons at McLaren and a 5th place his best result in that time, Alonso isn’t expecting to be battling against Mercedes this year, despite the radical new engine design and the regulation changes. Even so, the Spaniard hasn’t lost his motivation, and still intends to be world champion again some day.

“We need to recover a huge gap,” he said. “Winning having come sixth in the previous constructors’ championship is something no one did, apart from Brawn in 2009.

“We started 2017 early enough. We put a lot of resources in this year’s car. We changed completely the philosophy of the engine, which is risky but needed if we want to win, because the engine of the last two years was not good enough to win.”​

It’s unlikely McLaren Honda’s MCL32 will be good enough to win this season either, with new team boss Zak Brown warning not to expect race wins until 2018 at the earliest, but Alonso will be doing everything he can to prove his new boss wrong.

“Travelling to Australia, normally I arrive on Monday or Tuesday, but this time I will arrive on the Friday before,” he said. “I am 100% committed to winning and if I can win this year, it’s better than next year.”​

Alonso’s future is still uncertain. It’s understood the Spaniard won’t be following in Nico Roseberg’s footsteps and retiring anytime soon, but his contract at McLaren will run out at the end of the year. He has said he’s happy at the team, but he won’t be thinking about signing a new contract with them until after the summer break in August.

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