McLaren’s Fernando Alonso Hoping For 2.5-Second Gain, Engine Reliability In 2016

According to Fernando Alonso, if his team can make a two and a half second gain next season, they’ll go back to winning Grand Prix races.

By all accounts, McLaren’s first season using Honda power has been a major disappointment, through no fault of their own, of course. The Japanese manufacturer severely underestimated what it would take to compete in 2015 while strict F1 rules obviously didn’t help them at all.

Despite all that, Alonso still believes that his team can return to winning ways next season. The Spanish driver was recently quoted as saying that “Two and a half seconds. If we improve that much, we will win next year.”

He then went on to say that in order for McLaren to be successful, the power unit also needs to be more reliable considering how they “used 11 engines so far – this is also something we cannot afford next year.”

In terms of winning, well, that can mean one of four things – win a race or two, win the constructors title, win the drivers’ title or win both. In order to achieve any of these daunting tasks, McLaren will first need to at least equal Mercedes and Ferrari, which will be extremely difficult.

So would 2.5 seconds help? Absolutely. But we definitely shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for that type of quantum leap.

Story references: motorsport