There was some solid pace on display at Aston Martin on Friday in Melbourne, especially when it came to the second practice session for this weekend's Australian Grand Prix, round three of the 2024 world championship.
Lance Stroll ended the day fourth fastest with a time of 1:17.822s putting him just over half a second behind overall pace setter Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari.
Meanwhile Fernando Alonso was right behind him in P5 despite being almost a tenth off the pace off his younger team mate. But both drivers were happy to be ahead of the likes of Mercedes and McLaren on the timesheets.
The team had brought new front wing flaps to Albert Park, and gathered valuable data on their performance over the two one-hour sessions.
"The car felt good today," Stroll reported after the end of the day's track activity. "I was happy with the balance, and we had a straightforward day gathering plenty of data.
"We've been pretty strong on one-lap pace this season, so it's positive to see we've kept that up here," he continued. "But let's keep our feet on the ground because it's only Free Practice
"We don't know what the others have been doing," he pointed out. "Nevertheless, it's a positive start to the weekend and I'm looking forward to getting back into the car for qualifying tomorrow."
Alonso was one of a number of drivers to have a 'moment' during practice and run off the track because of the bumpy and slippery nature of the temporary street circuit coupled with gusty high winds.
Alonso needed a floor change to his car after his wayward moment which meant that he was P18 in first practice, before rebounding toward the top in the afternoon.
"It's always tricky here at Albert Park," said the F1 veteran. "The track rubbers in quite a lot and the grip changes. That led to me running through the gravel at turn 10 during FP1, so we had to change the floor during the session.
"Our programme was a little compromised due to that, but FP2 ran smoothly and we completed everything we set out to do," he continued.
"It's always satisfying to be towards the top of the timesheet, but we won’t draw any conclusions from today as it's only free practice and there are still plenty of variables to consider.
"We have a lot of data to now analyse in order to give us the best chance of getting a positive result in Qualifying," he added.
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