BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Fernando Alonso is treating McLaren's promising Friday practice performance with caution after he and teammate Jenson Button finished seventh and eighth in FP2 for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Mercedes appears to be in a class of its own at the Hungaroring, with Red Bull and Ferrari in a battle for the second and third rows of the grid. McLaren was the fourth quickest team in both practice sessions on Friday, but Alonso warned that Friday pace has not always transferred to high grid positions once the Mercedes-powered teams switch to their qualifying settings.
"We were 7th today but we'll have to see how it goes," he said. "We were up there in Silverstone and just made into Q3 to qualify 10th. I think we'll be in the battle to get into Q3 and hopefully we'll be in the top ten as that should give us an advantage in the race.
"Let's see what happens tomorrow, as others do improve a lot when they get full use of their engines in qualifying, especially the Mercedes. Here the engine counts a bit less, so hopefully they won't have that much of an advantage and we'll be able to stay up there."
McLaren had to fit a used Honda power unit to Alonso's car between practice sessions after his new one from Silverstone developed a problem.
"The first session went rather well, there were no issues, but while we were in the technical meeting a Honda engineer came up to tell us it would be better to change the Power Unit. So they put back the one I used in Austria and Azerbaijan, and it ran with no problems in FP2, so it will stay in the car for tomorrow.
"Of course it's bad news to have to change a Power Unit that has done just one Grand Prix, in Silverstone, but it's not a step backward, it's something normal."