In a very unusual way, Fernando Alonso was eliminated in the first phase of qualifying for the United States Grand Prix. Aston Martin overall revealed difficulties and the Spanish driver finished only 17th in yesterday’s session in Austin.
The two-time champion of 2005 and 2006 admitted that it was an unsatisfactory qualifying session: ‘It was not an ideal qualifying for us with both cars eliminated in Q1. There was a lot of traffic and we completed our out lap with about one second missing for the checkered flag. We started too close to the cars in front. I don’t think that helped. It was very tight between many cars, with only a few tenths of a second difference.’
After brake problems in free practice, Alonso admitted that it was still not possible to fully exploit the updates introduced in the AMR23: ‘We had a difficult FP1 with some issues and we were not able to optimize the new package we brought to Austin. We are now in parc fermé, so let’s see what we can do on Saturday, hopefully with a cleaner day.’
