Saturday 28 / December / 2024
Texas : Fernando Alonso expects Aston Martin to face a "heavily compromised" race in Sunday's United States Grand Prix after the team suffered a repeat Q1 exit in qualifying.
After losing ground to rivals such as Mercedes and Ferrari in recent races, the team brought a new floor for the AMR23 to Austin but struggled to capture critical data during Friday's free practice hour, which will be the last practice session of another Sprint weekend.
Due to the requirement for the team to swap parts on the car, Lance Stroll was forced to spend much of FP1 out of the car, while Alonso only completed limited running.
The British team's fortunes did not improve in qualifying, as both drivers failed to advance beyond Q1. This puts Alonso in P17 for Sunday's Grand Prix, with Stroll in the back row in P19.
"No, it was the maximum, I think. The lap was not ideal, the out lap especially, the traffic was very badly managed. I think I crossed the line within one second of the limit, so I started the lap too close to the cars in front, so that didn't help," Alonso was quoted as saying by Formula 1.
"We should go back and complete the day completely, starting from the morning. We had a terrible session, Lance didn't complete any laps, I did only six or seven quality laps with the new package," Alonso admitted.
"The lap felt okay, and the pace was really not good enough to be into Q2, and let's see tomorrow if we can make a good Sprint because Sunday's race is heavily compromised now," Alonso added.
The two-time world champion also believes that Aston Martin's previous troubles in FP1 contributed significantly to their qualifying struggles.
"Too many unknowns, in terms of how to operate the package and the new car, so I think we arrived a bit blind into qualifying and obviously we see the result. Nothing we can do now, we are in parc ferme. We [can] use this weekend as a test for next year as well, even if they are painful, so let's see what we can learn in the remaining sessions," he added.
Lance Stroll, on the other hand, didn't believe his lack of training earlier in the day had affected his feel for the car in qualifying.
"It didn't feel like it was a bad session, I think. I actually felt like I was okay in the car and even after no running in FP1, I felt like I got to grips with the car pretty quickly. But yeah, we just weren't quick enough," Stroll stated.
