McLaren was left encouraged by trouble-free running on Friday for the British Grand Prix, with both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne showing strong pace across both 90-minute sessions.
Alonso finished the session ninth quickest, just three-tenths adrift of 'best of the rest' Nico Hulkenberg in seventh for Renault, with Williams' Felipe Massa splitting the pair, and although the Spaniard is aware that positions on Fridays account for nothing, he was left in a positive mood.
"I’m pretty happy with how my day went," said Alonso. "We’ve got several options we need to look at now, to choose the best one for tomorrow, but we’ve mainly been concentrating on race pace because we know that we’ll start from the back," he added, referring to his five-place grid penalty for a new energy store.
"As we know, the lap-times are not that significant on a Friday. For the last couple of races we’ve been between 8th and 12th position, so we have to wait and see what happens tomorrow."
Vandoorne was also happy with his practice sessions, considering the nature of the Silverstone circuit is power-demanding and shouldn't suit the Honda power unit.
"Today has actually been a pretty good start to our weekend. Given that this is a long circuit, with a lot of high-speed corners, I think our car has been performing well – I felt pretty comfortable out there," added the Belgian.
"As usual, the times in the midfield are very close, so it’ll be the tiniest details that will make a difference during qualifying tomorrow. At the moment, we’re still exploring the car’s limits – particularly in the Becketts section of the lap. I think both Fernando and I had a moment during that part of the lap – just losing the rear on the entry of the final section."
The pair could yet face further grid drops though, with Honda considering several component changes ahead of the next race in Hungary, which is expected to suit the MCL32.
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