Alonso hails ‘a good Thursday’, with set-up possibilities quite open

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Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso was feeling buoyed by a strong performance in practice at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in the run-up to this weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Alonso was second quickest in the daytime first practice, but went on to set the quickest time of day overall with a time of 1:28.827s, putting him 0.230s ahead of Max Verstappen.

Overall it was just the start to the event that he was hoping for, as Aston seeks to recapture its thrilling successes and podium appearances during the early races of 2023.

“I feel good. Obviously it’s only free practice," he said, adding he had no sense yet about race pace. “We just jump out of the car and we have to come here to speak with you, so I have no idea!

"It's always nice to be the fastest in any session, but it's only free practice so we will keep our feet on the ground and stay focused on ourselves.

Read also: Alonso finishes on top in second practice

"As we saw last year and also in Bahrain, we are faster in free practice than in qualifying. I think we run different strategy [compared to the other teams] in terms of fuel loads, engine modes and so on.

"Not really any issues with the car," he commented. "Set-up possibilities [are] also quite open for tomorrow. But yeah, definitely a good Thursday for us.”

Alonso's team mate Lance Stroll also finished on a happy note in sixth place at the end of FP2 despite being shown a black and white flag for a track limits infringement, having had a scare in FP1 when he made contact with the barrier.

“It’s a lot of fun to drive here, very high-speed. Very exciting in the car so, yeah, it’s cool," he said, adding that he'll be looking to build on his team's strong opening day.

"We've shown good pace in both sessions and on different tyres, but it's only Free Practice and there are a lot of unknowns in terms of the programmes the other teams were running today.

"We'll look into the data tonight and aim to build on what's been a solid start to the weekend as we move towards Qualifying."

©AstonMartin

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.