The struggle continues for the McLaren team as it continues to adjust to life with Honda. After a double non-finish at the previous event at Malaysia for two separate reasons involving the power unit, the team will be looking to make further improvements to the reliability which has clearly plagued the team severely since the very first day of winter testing.
2015 Chinese Grand Prix McLaren Preview
Cooler temperatures at Shanghai are expected to help with keeping the unit at a reasonable state, but it is not expected to help with performance. In fact, McLaren expect to be pretty far off the pace here, despite performing well in similar conditions towards the tail-end of last season. Keeping tyres up to temperature is a tricky thing to do when a car is significantly off the pace. Should the team finish the event this time around, I would expect them to only be ahead of the Manor cars.
No. 14 Fernando Alonso (SPA)
2015 Form: -/R
2014 Result: Q: P5, R: P3
Alonso achieved one half of his podium tally for the entire season at the Chinese Grand Prix last year after making his way past a pair of squabbling Red Bulls. This year marks ten years since he first won the Chinese Grand Prix, and he took another win here in 2013. Whilst it is incredibly unlikely that he will add to that here, he will be looking to at least provide a bit of entertainment for his Chinese fans.
No. 22 Jenson Button (GBR)
2015 Form: 11/R
2014 Result: Q: P12, R: P11
Also a former winner here is Jenson Button. Button took a classy victory back in 2010 after a battle with then-team mate Lewis Hamilton. Button will also be looking to do nothing more than provide a bit of entertainment, especially as he didn’t look quite as racy at Malaysia as team mate Alonso did. Alonso had the upper hand in the race there, so Button will be looking to put one on Alonso this time around.
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