Aston Martin
Fernando Alonso, 16th
“We were quite competitive today and were having a strong race, but the damage to our car compromised everything for us. It felt like we were chasing down a potential points-scoring position as we were running in P12 with a damaged car. The damage was sustained from contact on lap one when Alex [Albon] hit us going into Turn 11. We carried on, but eventually had to pit for a new front wing and that dropped us down the order. We have some positives to take from this weekend despite the result today.”
Lance Stroll, 15th
“We had to make some changes to the car after Qualifying because of damage, so we started from the pit lane. Our pace was a bit more competitive today and I was racing [Alex] Albon for a lot of the race. There was a bit of overtaking too which was nice. We saw a big loss of load in the final laps though, so we need to go away and understand that.”
Adrian Newey, Team Principal
“Not the easiest race in Austin with both cars picking up issues and limiting performance. In Fernando’s case a front wing change was needed on lap 42, which stopped our efforts to deliver a one-stop strategy and dropped him out of contention. It seems the damage was a legacy of the contact with the Williams of [Alex] Albon on lap one. Before the pit stop, Fernando's pace was on a par with the cars ahead of him but we couldn't match their straight line speed which meant there was no option to overtake.
“Lance – having started from the pit lane – progressed up to P15 at the flag despite losing downforce at the rear of the car after his second pit stop. We need to look at the data to understand exactly what happened.
"Despite these issues, we will focus on the positives - both drivers were in the fight with decent race pace and extracted the most they could from the car today.”
