Fernando Alonso was deeply unhappy with the outcome of Friday's qualifying session for the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, saying his prospects for Sunday had been heavily compromised.
The team was trying out a brand new floor and engine cover upgrade for the AMR23 driven by Alonso and his team mate Lance Stroll, but from the start little seemed to go right for either of them.
Both drivers suffered from left front brake fires on the day's sole practice session, leaving Stroll completing just five laps while Alonso was able to get back out and complete a total of 19 laps.
“We had that terrible session," Alonso complained. "Lance didn't complete any [flying] laps; 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."
"I think we went a bit blind into qualifying and obviously we see the results, so nothing we can do now," he sighed. “We should go back and repeat the day completely, starting from the morning."
Sure enough, Alonso went on to miss the first cut at the end of Q1 albeit only by 0.055s. While that's a spender margin, it means he will line up in 17th place for Sunday's race, the first time this year he will start outside the top ten.
“It was the maximum," he insisted when speaking to the media in the paddock afterwards. “The lap was not ideal, the out-lap especially, the traffic was very badly managed.
"I crossed the line within one second of the limit, so I started the lap too close to the cars in front," he explained. "That didn't help, but the lap felt okay. The pace was maybe not good enough to be in Q2."
Alonso suggested that the test of the weekend would be something of a test session for the team, with tomorrow's sprint showdown and race giving them the opportunity to get to know their upgrades better.
© Aston Martin
"We weren’t able to optimise the new package we brought to Austin. We are in parc fermé now so we will see what we can do tomorrow with hopefully a cleaner day," he said. "Even if it's painful, let's see what we can learn.
“Let's see tomorrow if we can make a good Sprint because Sunday’s race is heavily compromised now," he continued. “We use this weekend as a test for next year as well.
As for Stroll, it's another frustrating weekend after his torrid time in Qatar which left him apologising to race stewards for his conduct out of the car. But the Canadian was trying to look o the bright side this week.
“Even after no running in FP1, I feel like I've got to grips with the car pretty quickly," he insisted. “I didn't feel like it was a bad session, I actually felt like I was okay in the car.
"But we just weren't quick enough," he admitted. "We’d hoped for a bit more, so it’s a disappointing result, but this is a good track to race at and overtaking is possible."
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