07/06/2018
NEWS STORY
After 6 races, Fernando Alonso is the only driver who has out-qualified his teammate at all six.
Furthermore, with 32 points to Stoffel Vandoorne's 8, the Spaniard has finished ahead of his teammate in all (four) races where both have finished.
At a time however, when McLaren has rejected the advances of Toro Rosso, which had sought to recruit the Woking outfit's test and reserve driver Lando Norris to replace Brendon Hartley, and amidst speculation the Briton might be needed to replace a departing Alonso or underperforming Vandoorne, the Belgian sought to downplay the significance of the statistics.
"I don't think it tells the whole story," he said of them. "Obviously, the statistics tell maybe that, but I think in reality we are very, very closely matched.
"In terms of where I was last year, I feel I'm in a much better position this year," he continued. "I think things have not always gone my way. We lacked a little bit of luck on some occasions. And some occasions Fernando was just the quicker one as well, which is normal.
"I think we are going in the right direction," he added. "The team is moving forward. We've obviously had a tough start to the season. There were a lot of expectations on our team and we've not managed to perform as expected. So we keep improving race after race and hopefully this weekend we can show we made another step forward.
"It's been a little bit of a difficult period," he admitted, reflecting on the last two races in particular, which included Alonso's first retirement of the season. "I had a retirement in Spain and then Fernando had a retirement in Monaco.
"Obviously that was not ideal, but I think we are still very close in this midfield and one weekend we are a bit stronger than another one.
"The last couple of races have been difficult tracks for us as well in terms of overtaking. I think this weekend is a different story again. It's a new weekend, this track is completely different to the other ones and hopefully should provide us some opportunities."