28/03/2017
NEWS STORY
Mark Webber believes Fernando Alonso could quit McLaren before season end.
In qualifying, Fernando Alonso admitted that he had nothing more to give, next day's Australian Grand Prix had the Spaniard describing his performance as "probably one of my very best races", "I was able to drive the car at my maximum", he added.
Yet all he had to show for it was a DNF, the two-time world champion retiring seven laps from the end due to bodywork damage incurred earlier in the race.
Even so, at the point of his retirement he was running tenth, struggling to hold off Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkenberg.
Finishing the race thirteenth, even Stoffel Vandoorne's result flattered the McLaren-Honda of which Alonso said: "In normal conditions on a normal circuit we should be last."
Alonso was running in tenth at the time of his retirement mainly due to his extraordinary qualifying performance, passing Hulkenberg on the second lap and then Romain Grosjean's retirement.
Speaking to Belgium's Sporza, Mark Webber, who filled Alonso's seat at Minardi in 2002 a year after the Spaniard had made such an impression on the sport, suggested that the two-time champ might soon decide he's had enough.
"Maybe Fernando is not going to be at McLaren for the whole year" said the Australian. "Fernando might not do the whole year. He's frustrated like hell, he doesn't even want to finish seventh or sixth.
"It's not like Vandoorne’s situation," he continued. "Maybe points for him is quite nice, but Fernando is not interested in points, he wants to be fighting for podiums. So mentally he's a long, long way away from where he wants to be."
In recent times Alonso has made no secret of the fact that not only was the (continuing) frustration at the lack of progress from Honda causing him to doubt his future in the sport, so too was the fact that the actual racing no longer gives him a buzz. Much, he admitted, would depend on how this year's new regulations impacted the sport.