After his "minor scare" in Friday practice for the Japanese Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso said McLaren still faces a fight to make Q3 despite Honda's upgraded power unit.
Alonso moved on to a new Honda engine in Malaysia so the Japanese manufacturer could avoid penalties for its home race this weekend. The upgrade includes a new engine block and exhaust, the latter of which he damaged with a spin into the barriers in the early stages FP1.
He recovered to record 37 laps in the afternoon session but still thinks McLaren will struggle make the top ten shootout on Saturday afternoon.
"I think we have to wait for Saturday to see where we are but I'm sure we won't be so further up the order as today," Alonso said after finishing ninth in FP2. "In the first session I got a reasonably good lap time, in spite of my minor scare, and then we had a bit of a problem with an exhaust, that cost us a bit of time and didn't allow me to go out and try the Medium tyres.
"We tried to make up for the lost ground in the second session, managing 37 laps, so we gathered very good information about the tyre degradation. I think we ended up in P8, Ricciardo couldn't complete his lap, so that means already P9 at best, and on top of that we already know than on Saturday the others can take more out of their engines, so we'll be fighting to get into Q3."
Rain is forecast for later in the weekend but Alonso thinks that could go either way for McLaren in terms of its place in the pecking order.
Hopefully it won't rain in FP3, otherwise, with the changes we have to make, we'll walk into qualifying like into a bit of an unknown."
If it rains it will change everything, but it can go your way or against you, as it' a bit of a lottery. You have to get the tyres right - intermediates or full wets - but in any case we have to do our best, be it dry or wet. It will be very tight to get into Q3 but we'll do our best.