At the Miami International Autodrome, Aston Martin’s weekend has been nothing short of memorable thus far. In Sprint Qualifying on Friday, Lance Stroll and Alonso finished seventh and eighth, respectively, but they were unable to turn their starting positions into points on Saturday.
This resulted from an incident during the Sprint Race’s opening lap. Lewis Hamilton attempted an inside move as the drivers descended into Turn 1, but in doing so, he drove Alonso and Stroll to collide with Lando Norris as well.
This forced the Spanish driver to cross the finish line in P17 after having to pit early due to a puncture from the incident, forcing the Canadian driver to withdraw from the race.
The Silverstone team had a chance to change their fate later in the day, but they were unable to do so because both of their drivers were eliminated in qualifying’s second round.
Alonso missed qualifying for the first time this season, and he will begin the Grand Prix from a lowly P15 position on the grid. His colleague qualified in P11, having a little superior performance during the session.
Aston Martin and Alonso have work to do.
After qualifying, Alonso spoke with formula1.com on his and the team’s difficult weekend in Miami thus far and acknowledged that the fresh setup adjustments he had been given hadn’t gone as planned.
The two-time world champion stated, “We seem to [be] struggling a lot today compared to yesterday – we were P7 and P8 in yesterday’s qualifying and we are out of Q3 [today].” “I performed quite poorly [in] Q2, P15, in my case.”
“I was not able to become much better. We made some setup adjustments between this morning’s practice and today, and based on the times, I would conclude that wasn’t as successful as we had hoped. However, it is a Sprint weekend, so things are challenging.
We are in the rear of the group, so you can be P8 or P15 in less than two tenths. We have already been on the positive side of that group on a few occasions this year; in China, for example, we were ranked P3, only tenth out of P9.
“Well, let’s accept it, let’s pick up some knowledge from the race tomorrow, and we’ll see.”
Alonso said that he would find it challenging to get points in Sunday’s race, but he thinks his teammate will have a greater opportunity to place in the top 10.
“Yes, I believe it will be extremely challenging to win points in my case.”
“I think learning a few things at race pace will be the main priority for me, but I think Lance hopefully has a better chance starting P11, already close to the points.”
Leave a Reply