Aston Martin tries everything to save a bad weekend. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were both eliminated in SQ1 at Interlagos, setting the 16th and 19th fastest times. Seeing the sprint compromised, the British team decided to make major modifications, with specification changes to the bodies of both cars, as well as changes to the suspension settings.
These changes are a violation of armed park rules, which will force Alonso and Stroll to start from the pit lane. They will not be alone there since Zhou Guanyu, 20th in sprint qualifying, will be in an F1 Stake with suspension settings also modified. The Chinese will therefore also be contracted to start from the pit lane.
The changes made to the Aston Martins confirm the desire expressed by Alonso after the sprint qualification. Aware that his team could hope for nothing in the first of the two events of the weekend, he announced his intention to treat the 24 laps on the program as a full-scale practice session, in order to progress for the qualifications planned later in the day, and especially for the race on Sunday.
“We had no pace in qualifying”explained the double world champion. “We made some changes after FP1 but we knew they could hurt the pace of the car, but we have to focus on Sunday more than Saturday so for us the sprint is more of a practice session.”
“The sprint doesn't really mean anything to us, because there are only eight cars scoring points”underlined Alonso. “And even when you are seventh or eighth, you score one or two points, so the format only rewards those who are fast on Friday night and Saturday.”
“We focus more on Sunday, that's how we treat sprint weekends. It's a bit pointless until Sunday afternoon, and that's still the case here.”
With Oleg Karpov
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