McLaren shows new fight and speed at Australian GP

In the first race of the new F1 season, Alonso showed that his team now has new fight since switching from its Honda-made engines to ones made by Renault as he took fifth place with a strong performance at the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.

For three years, McLaren's Fernando Alonso could only dream of having a car reliable enough to compete with the top teams in Formula One. Or at least finish races. In the first race of the new F1 season, Alonso showed that his team now has new fight since switching from its Honda-made engines to ones made by Renault as he took fifth place with a strong performance at the Australian Grand Prix, while his teammate, Stoffel Vandoorne, finished ninth.

"The last couple of years have been difficult, and I think the winter has been difficult, as well," Alonso said, referring to technical mishaps in off-season testing that limited McLaren to the fewest laps of the 10 teams running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.