Fernando Alonso says a “terrible session” of practice on Friday set the scene for his first Q1 exit of the season at the United States Grand Prix.
Aston Martin brought an upgrade package to Austin but struggled in FP1, with Lance Stroll’s session ending after just five laps with a front left brake issue and Alonso also limited to the next-lowest total of 19. After being eliminated in 17th place in qualifying — two places ahead of Stroll — Alonso said it was simply the best he could get out of the car with the setup he had.
“No, it was the maximum,” Alonso said. “The lap was not ideal — the out lap, especially the traffic, was very bad to manage. I think I crossed the line within 1s of the limit so I started the lap too close to the cars in front. That didn’t help, but that lap felt OK and the pace was maybe not good enough to get into Q2. Let’s see tomorrow if we can do a good Sprint because Sunday’s race is heavily compromised now.”
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Alonso admits he has limited feeling with the upgraded car as a result of the issues he faced in FP1, while Stroll was also unable to offer up any relevant data.
“We should go back and complete the day completely. Starting from the morning we had a terrible session. Lance didn’t complete any laps [and] I only did six or seven quality laps with the new package. Too many unknowns in terms of how to operate the package and the new car, so I think we went a little bit blind into qualifying and obviously we see the result.
“Nothing we can do now; we are in parc ferme. We use these weekends 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.”
For Stroll, it was another Q1 exit but the Canadian was relatively content with his performance given the lack of running.
“It didn’t feel like it was a bad session,” Stroll said. “I actually felt like I was OK in the car and even after no running in FP1 I felt like I got to grips with the car pretty quickly, but we just weren’t quick enough.
“I was hoping for more for sure … There’s definitely opportunities here on Sunday so we will see what we can do.”