McLaren has No Ambition: Alonso

Fernando Alonso says that McLaren currently lacks ambition after he wasn’t allowed to go for the fastest lap of the race in Sochi. The Spaniard was running well outside the points and wanted to pit late on for a fresh set of tyres and go for the fastest lap.

However, McLaren denied his request, and he crossed the line in P14. Alonso will be leaving the team, and indeed, Formula 1 at the end of the year but the 37-year-old says that the team should be more open and motivated going forward.

“Yes, when you are P14/15 it is good for the team, good for the guys working flat out every day, good for the sponsors and partners. But we were lacking ambition I think today,” he said when questioned about going for the fastest lap.

McLaren had another tough weekend in Russian after claiming a seventh-place finish in Singapore. Alonso stated that the team simply didn’t have the pace to compete, and is hoping it can produce a stronger result in Japan this weekend.

“It was quite a long race,” he said. “We stopped on lap 4/5 to try to undercut some people. All of them had one set of yellow tires, we had two. The yellow tire for the whole race with no issues, and that did not come out as we expected. Overall we did not have the pace, as we said before the race. Nothing we can do now, so thinking of Japan and maybe we can score some points there.”

Alonso will be competing in his final 5 races in Formula One before retiring from the sport. Incidentally, his teammate, Stoffel Vandoorne is also in his final few races, as he has no contract for 2019. But, the Belgian is using these last five races to improve his performance and hopefully attract interest.

Over the last few years, McLaren have struggled to earn points, forget about podiums and wins. The once-great British team, that boasted the likes of Senna, Prost, Hunt, Raikkonen, Hamilton and others, has been scrounging at best.