McLaren arrived in Singapore full of confidence with team boss Eric Boullier predicting a strong haul of points at a circuit which should suit their car, whilst Jenson Button believed they'd be fighting for 'best of the rest' behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
However those expectations came crashing down on Friday following the conclusion of practice. Not only did both Fernando Alonso and Button encounter problems – both stopped on circuit – but they were some way off the pace of the cars ahead of them, finishing ninth and 12th respectively.
Alonso reckons escaping Q2 will be difficult, despite having achieved it at several races this season so far on circuits that McLaren didn't expect to suit their car.
"Our expectations were quite high before coming here – although, to be fair, I’d said beforehand that there are circuits coming up that should suit us better than Singapore.
"We’ll have to fight to get into Q3 tomorrow because I think Force India and Toro Rosso both look pretty strong around here. Hopefully we can find a couple of tenths overnight so as to battle them for the final three or four top-10 positions in qualifying though."
Both Alonso and Button complained of a lack of grip and are hoping their team can find a suitable setup to cure some of their issues before final practice and qualifying.
"Our biggest problem is an overall deficit of grip – we need to find a bit more downforce for tomorrow, and then we need to make the tyres work better over a single lap," added Alonso.
"Our pace hasn’t been quite as good today as we’d anticipated," said Button. "As a result, we’ve got quite a lot of work to do before we can be as competitive as we want to be this weekend.
"We just couldn’t quite access the grip out there today, so we’re going to need a decent gain in pace to be competitive. Hopefully we can improve things overnight – it’s going to be a busy evening."
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