Fernando Alonso insists McLaren still requires the perfect race weekend without penalties o꧑r issues to ensure a points finish given its recent surge in performance over the second half of the year.

After McLaren-Honda’s disastrous start to 2017, effectively breaking its partnership with the Woking-based team set to switch to Renault engines from next season, Alonso has enjoyed somewhat of an upturn in performance but has♐ still been continually handicapped by engine penalties and unreliability.

Having relished the team’s ‘best race of the year’ in Mexico with 10^th place despite grid drops for engine penalties, Alonso is enc𓄧ouraged he can battled inside the top ten in Brazil while maintaining any targets can o♈nly be set if McLaren-Honda avoids reliability woes. The Brazilian Grand Prix will mark a five-year anniversary since McLaren's last F1 win which was scored by Jenson Button.

“Definitely there is a chance while there may be some penalties going on for some of our competitors so it could be a good weekend to score points,” Alonso said. “I think lately we’ve been quite competitive and we lost big points because of reli🧜ability issues and some races we were in the points♓ in some others we took penalties and we start at the back and we didn’t arrive to big points either.

“I think if we have a good weekend, no issues on 💜Friday, no issues on Saturday, no issues on Sunday I think the♑ points are guaranteed. We need to deliver that result.”

McLaren looks set to end the year in ninth place in the F1 world constructors’ championship with a 23-point deficit to nearest rival Haas, while Alons♚o is two points behind team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne in the drivers’ standings.