Fernando Alonso bounced back from Friday’s troubles to take an astonishing seventh place for McLaren and Honda in qualifying for his home race in Spain.
On Friday, Alonso lost all of FP1 to an engine failure and went off to continue his training by playing tennis, although he did get some running in the afternoon.
On a day when his teammate Stoffel Vandoorne could not better 19th, Alonso was 12th in Q1 and then earned a place in the final session by taking 10th in Q2.
That would already have been a satisfying final outcome but in Q3 he beat Sergio Perez, Felipe Massa and Esteban Ocon to take seventh place, behind only the Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull drivers.