In the opening free practice session for this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso attempted to run his planned programmes for much of the session, that was until the McLaren Honda driver stopped out on track shortly before the end, owing to a hydraulic leak in the power unit.
He ended the first ninety minute session in 16th position, having completed 13 laps.
For FP2 the team worked hard to ready Fernando's car following the hydraulic leak, and fortunately it was a straightforward task that did not require any major component changes.
Fernando got back behind the wheel with just over 30 minutes before the end of running, and clocked the 7th-fastest time after 19 laps.
“It's not been an easy Friday. We lost FP1 and most of FP2 owing to a hydraulic leak issue. Due to the lack of track time, the car isn't yet perfectly ‘tuned' and there's certainly room for improvement with regard to the set-up,” he said.
“Nevertheless, I think we know this circuit, we've raced here for many years, and we should understand how to attack qualifying and the race, so our time loss should hopefully not translate into too much of a handicap.”
“Our expectations here are probably to be on the fringes of the top 10, but I'm glad we managed to put in some good laps at the end of the session, as we did in Barcelona, and we duly made it to P7 at the end. Tomorrow our priority is to push to get into Q3, but for that we need to do a good job.”
