On December 11, 2014, the McLaren team announced the return of Fernando Alonso to the Woking team after his time in 2007. The Asturian two-time champion put aside everything that happened in the British structure in that season in which they lost the title to the detriment of Kimi Raikkonen, who was crowned world champion in the last race of the year.
That day, the Spanish pilot was smiling, he even took a photo with Ron Dennis to certify that there was no rancor between them due to the controversy of seven campaigns before.
“I heard that signing for McLaren was a good decision because Ferrari’s turbo engine was not good,” Alonso explained when he signed the contract that linked him to the team.
McLaren promised to return to the top with a new power unit, that of Honda, which was being developed throughout the first course of the hybrid era in the shadows, without real tests in competition conditions like the rest of its rivals.
On February 1, 2015 , at the Jerez circuit and before the expectation of thousands of people who came, the MP4-30 came out on the asphalt for the first time. It was the return of Honda to McLaren, the group with which it shone in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the pair of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna .
Precisely, the Brazilian was one of the greatest idols for Fernando Alonso, who joined the project with the intention of emulating the three-time champion. The man from Oviedo played hard to get among the local fans, but after a few hours, he got into the single-seater motorized by “the power of dreams”, as his motto indicated, and gave an installation lap greeting everyone present.
He returned to the garage to the astonishment of the people, who were surprised by the sound of the Japanese power unit, very different from the rest of the single-seaters that were running that day, such as Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes, Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari or the Camouflaged Red Bull by Daniel Ricciardo.
All the stands were eager to hear a simple over the loudspeaker: “Fernando Alonso returns to the track.” However, that only happened on a few occasions, because the McLaren-Honda that premiered there barely allowed six laps and was more than 18 seconds behind the fastest time of the day, that of Vettel.
That same day, Carlos Sainz was also on his first day as an official Formula 1 driver with Toro Rosso, and made up for the Spanish fans’ disappointment at not seeing Alonso as much. The man from Madrid completed 46 laps with the STR10 and, despite finishing just ahead of his compatriot, he already left small signs that he could become a great driver as he is today.
The hours from the seats of the Jerez track passed slowly as they did not know the reason why McLaren did not go out on the track, and at nightfall they announced that they suffered electrical problems. The door to the Woking team’s box was not even opened in the afternoon, leaving serious doubts about its true potential, which was seen over the next three days of pre-season in the south of Spain.
Barely 79 laps in four days and no less than 6 seconds off the fastest time (they were 33 seconds off the leaders’ times) were proof of something that was confirmed in the following seasons, when the dream of reviving the era Senna’s golden age with Alonso at the controls, faded in the same way that the Honda engine did in every grand prix.
