Fernando Alonso says he was caught out by traffic on his single hot lap in the final segment of qualifying at Silverstone, which left him with no other choice but to abort his run.
Alonso concluded Saturday’s session P10, two places behind his Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll.
With just one set of soft tyres at his disposal in Q3, the Spaniard’s position in the pecking order boiled down to a single flyer, one that had been ill-timed by his team’s strategists.
“We had only one new set of tyres for Q3,” Alonso recouned. “And yeah, we didn’t make the [final] lap. It was a big fight on the outlap between Carlos [Sainz], Oscar [Piastri], and myself.
“They started really [close] together, both of them, so their laps were not good and I started in first gear in the last corner.
“So by Turn 3, I was half a second down and yeah, we boxed.
“Yeah, being P3 in Q2, with that lap time probably we were P7, P6, P8 or whatever in Q3, it hurts a little bit but nothing we can do now.”
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Alonso reckoned that Aston putting both its cars among the top-ten on the grid for the first time since Montreal was at least a reflection of progress for Team Silverstone.
“I think we understood a couple of the problems we faced in Barcelona and Austria, so we were optimistic or more optimistic for this race to fix some of those,” explained the two-time F1 world champion.
“And yeah, I think we confirmed that the car went back to a more natural position, fifth or sixth fastest team, fighting for the last spots in Q3 and hopefully tomorrow we’re fighting for the last couple of points with both cars.”
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Aston introduced several updates on its AMR24 for its home race this weekend in a bid to improve its car’s aero efficiency around Silverstone’s low-downforce rack.
Alonso h-gave a thumbs up to the changes.
“I think the upgrades are better, the car is performing better and we tested them yesterday, the new front wing and things and it was as expected a step forward,” he said.
“And yeah, I think in Austria and Barcelona we went two or three steps backwards and we fixed a little bit the car here.”
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