Fernando Alonso admits Suzuka has represented a step backwards for McLaren after he and Jenson Button were forced to settle for 15th and 17th on the grid.Honda came to its home race hoping for a competitive weekend but dropped off the pace on Saturday. Alonso switched to Hondas upgrade in Malaysia so he could run it this weekend without a penalty but still faces a start towards the back end of the grid.Alonso admits McLaren needs to hope for showers for Sundays grand prix.Definitely not the right performance in qualifying, Alonso said. All weekend long we have been struggling a little bit, trying to find the balance and speed of the car as well. Definitely difficult positions to start the race tomorrow, 15th and 17th are not the best places for the two McLarens, especially after some races we were used to being in Q3 and fighting for the points.So it seems to be a step backwards here, especially yesterday and Saturday, so we need to find some speed for tomorrow ... some weather change, some rain will help us recover some places. But we need to analyse why we underperformed.Alonso thinks McLaren is still struggling to find the ideal set-up on both cars.So far it has been disappointing, no doubt. Its not great for our home grand prix but we didnt find the speed all weekend long, were struggling with the high-speed performance and straight-line performance.Difficult to balance this in terms of downforce choices, etc, so not the ideal place to start the race but hopefully we can recover some places, maybe some rain around tomorrow because in a normal race, normal circumstances it will be difficult to gain places.Though admitting its been a step backwards, Alonso does not believe it is a sign McLaren and Hondas latest upgrades have gone in the wrong direction.I think everything is working. Five days ago we were performing really well in Malaysia. Its just circuit to circuit seems to change the performance of the car, or our competitors - here it seems Force India and Haas are running very quick, in Singapore Toro Rosso was running very quick. So depending circuit to circuit and this one is probably not in our sight, so we need to understand why.cheap jerseys from china . Wall made the comment in a speech to a Regina business crowd that included Lesnar. The U.S. wrestler and retired mixed martial artist says he was visiting his brothers farm in Saskatchewan and decided he wanted to hear what the premier had to say. cheap china jerseys . -- The Bishops Gaiters are showing they belong among the countrys top varsity football teams. https://www.chinajerseysreplica.us/ . - Blake Griffin had 30 points and 12 rebounds, J. replica jerseys china . What general manager Dave Nonis called "short and productive" negotiations ended with Kessel signing a US$64-million, eight-year contract on Tuesday. wholesale jerseys china . Jay Feely kicked a 41-yard field goal in overtime, and the Cardinals edged the Tennessee Titans 37-34 in overtime after blowing a 17-point lead late in the fourth quarter.There are many titles that could have been bestowed on Jessica Ennis-Hill during her magnificent athletics career. The Face of 2012? Of course. The nicest athlete in Britain? Almost certainly. The most beloved? Very possibly. The toughest? Well, if you had ever watched her train at her Sheffield base, you wouldnt have had to ask twice.Yet as British sport bade farewell on Thursday to its diminutive heroine with the big heart and the even bigger smile, it was also legitimate to wonder whether our Jess was, pound for pound, the finest, most complete all-round athlete this country has seen in the new millennium.We are talking of a woman who was not just the worlds best multi-eventer but, within Britain itself, brilliant enough to be at various points the nations top high jumper, its finest long jumper, its most outstanding, world-class hurdler and one of its fastest sprinters.Standing at 5-foot-5, she could leap 30cm above her own height -- a feat only ever achieved by a handful of jumpers -- and, though only a fraction above nine stone, she turned herself into one of the countrys top 10 shot putters. At her peak, she was forced through stress fractures to effectively relearn the long jump from scratch, having to take off from her left foot instead of her right, and yet still won the Olympic title within three years.Hers was an odyssey of courage, skill and unreal determination. No one trains harder than multi-eventers and no multi-eventer prepared harder than her.I once had the privilege to spend a day watching her train at the English Institute of Sport in her home town. It was truly wince-inducing.Intense sprints, skipping, sandpit drills, 12 long jumps, 12 puts, throwing technique sessions, circuit training, conditioning. Not as bad as the hill runs and weight sessions of the previous day but a brutal morning. She then sat at lunch just dreading the afternoons killer 800m training and, after those killer 200 metres reps, I actually did hear the unthinkable from her -- dear old Jess in agony, swearing her head off.Watching this workload, I remember later thinking that, after she had taken a break following her Olympic triumph to become a mum, it would be miraculous for her to reprise the same intense daily physical and mental slog that shed need to beat the world again. Thirteen months after giving birth to son Reggie, though, she was world heptathlon champion again. Yes, the mother of all comebacks.When such a natural talent was enhanced by such extraordinary determination, only one thing more was required to create the ideal athlete; a rare spirit when in the heat of competition.Toni Minichiello, the ebullient coach who could always seem to cajole the best out of this self-confessed worrier, once scolded me for suggesting she was Daley-esque, that she had something of the peerless Daley Thompsons ability to produce her best under the most sevvere moments of pressure.dddddddddddd. No, Jessica-esque -- Daleyd learn a thing or two, he laughed.Certainly, Thompson could have taken a lesson or two in charm and how to win friends and influence people from Ennis-Hill. Its not easy having to live up to some fanciful role model notion but she never seemed to have to try; shes just a natural and it was for good reason that she was earlier this year voted ahead of Andy Murray as the sports personality that Britain was most proud of.In an era when athletics had become enveloped by doubt and cynicism, people still always felt that here as someone they could still believe in. Mick Thompson, the coach who first spotted the talent of an energetic 10-year-old schoolgirl when overseeing a summer camp in Sheffield, once told me shes never changed in all the time hes known her. Whats not to like about Jess? Still as good as gold, always friendly and open, he said.Too true. She kept that demeanour even when the pressure was at its absolute height. Like Cathy Freeman in Sydney 2000 and Michael Johnson in Atlanta 1996, she shouldered with wonderful aplomb the ultimate double -- being both the face and the hero of a home Olympic Games.What could have been more challenging than having to burst out of that London 2012 poster and into legend on that Super Saturday with anything less than gold being seen as some sort of failure? As an example of amazing grace under pressure, British sport has seen little like it.So, yes, she was as good as gold yet the funny thing was how she always sounded as if she never quite understood how brilliant she was.With her Olympic heptathlon gold and silver, her two world titles (actually, it should really have been three because she wasnt up-graded from silver in 2011 even after Russian winner Tatyana Chernova was subsequently discredited as a doping cheat), her world indoor pentathlon title and her European crown, there have been times when Ennis-Hill would have had a right to call herself the worlds best athlete. Yet, she just laughed that she couldnt bring herself to think like that because it all sounded a bit too surreal.Lets be clear, though. The woman who had a right to once feel a bit irritated by being faintly patronised as tadpole by one British rival ended up showing everyone that she was a veritable giant in the nations sporting firmament.More than that, Ennis-Hill was living proof that nice guys do finish first. She could have plumped for one final hurrah at next years world championships, back at the scene of her 2012 triumph, but she knew instinctively it was time to go.Like practically everything she did, our Jess, who radiated sunshine while she raided all those golds, got it right even at the very end of her quite glittering career. ' ' '