Alonso: Points "possible" from last due to tyre advantage
Fernando Alonso is hoping that a good supply of fresh tyres will help him make progress from the back of the grid in Malaysia.
Alonso will start 22nd after picking up 45 places of grid penalties, which ensured that he made only a token effort in Q1, having preferred to save tyres.
In Belgium, he rose from the back to seventh at the flag, helped by some chaos ahead, but he expects this race to be tougher.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “[On Friday] the car seemed to respond well, P5 in FP1, P7 in FP2, so definitely feeling OK this weekend. Some new tyres tomorrow to exploit the potential of the car, so we’ll try to do a good race.
"I think the points finishing is an ambitious target, but still possible, depending on what happens in front of us, and how the first laps go in our favour.
"But I’m ready to really enjoy, because I think the pace is there, and exploiting the new tyre advantage, hopefully we can recover places.”
However, looking ahead, Alonso cautioned that the team is still well short of its target, with Honda's home GP at Suzuka coming up.
“Obviously it’s an important race for us, the home Grand Prix for Honda, and we will try to do well.
"Delivering a good result in front of our fans will be fantastic, and we will give our maximum next weekend.
“But our aim is not finishing seventh or fifth in Suzuka, it’s to be World Champions, and for that there’s still a long way to go.
"We will try to maximise next weekend’s performance, we will try to attack maximum, but the target and out focus is being World Champion.”
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