Mechanical issue halts Alonso's progress

McLaren's Fernando Alonso endured a troublesome Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying session on Saturday, charging hard under the floodlights but ultimately unable to progress beyond Q2 owing to a mechanical problem.

The Spaniard emerged on the super soft tyres for his final Q1 run, approximately three minutes before the end of the session, having initially posted the tenth-fastest time of the session with a 1:32.574.

He pitted between runs to make adjustments to the front wing before going back out, and on his final lap he gained time on every corner but Turn 4 to go 13th and into Q2, although he was bumped down to 15th on a 1:32.054. He commented positively about the lap between sessions: "Perhaps a little conservative in Turn 4, but the lap felt OK," he said.

The following session, however, saw Alonso abort his only lap on a new set of super softs with seven and a half minutes still remaining, and he drove back to his pit box with another Honda power unit problem. The car was pushed into the garage and the problem examined, but it proved to be terminal and Alonso climbed out, meaning he remains in 15th spot going into Sunday's race having not set a time.

Mason Hawker