Fernando Alonso says McLaren cannot expect “miracles” at the Russian Grand Prix, but asserted that it can still aim for a points finish.
McLaren has endured a difficult 2018 campaign and has typically struggled at high-speed circuits due to the draggy nature of its MCL33.
McLaren was the second-slowest team during Friday practice at the Sochi Autodrom, ahead of only Williams, as Alonso classified 17th, with Stoffel Vandoorne 18th.
Alonso is already poised to start from near the back of the grid after taking on fresh engine components, with Lando Norris lining up in the pits 20 minutes pre-FP1 to effectively bag 16th for Alonso, due to four other drivers also receiving sanctions.
Alonso has made Q3 only twice in 2018 but has finished in the points in nine Grands Prix, and is hopeful that McLaren’s comparatively superior race pace will be evident on Sunday.
“Well I think it was expected,” said Alonso of McLaren’s position in the pecking order.
“This weekend we know that it could be quite difficult to perform well because of the characteristics of the circuit, so we opted to change the engine here and pay the penalty.
“We saw a high degradation on the tyres, so let’s try to be calm and choose a good strategy for Sunday, prepare for Sunday, because qualifying means not much for us unfortunately.
“[Sochi] is a circuit with the highest power sensitivity after Monza and Spa, so we know it’s normally a bad sign for our performance of that weekend.
“It’s something we are trying to understand and try different set-ups to reduce drag on the car, but at the same time we know there are no miracles from one weekend to the other.
“It’s going to be tough but points are still possible, even in Monza when we retired we were P11 so we were close to the points.”
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