Aston Martin amongst a trio of cars to start Brazilian Sprint from the pit lane
Fernando Alonso has had a difficult second season with Aston Martin
Aston Martin have made the call to start Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll from the pit lane in Saturday’s Sprint in Brazil having made set-up changes.
Despite abandoning their latest spec floor and reverting to the one they ran in Suzuka, Aston Martin struggled for pace in Sprint qualifying on Friday.
Pit lane starts for both Aston Martins and Zhou Guanyu
Both drivers were eliminated in SQ1 with Alonso 16th with Stroll P19, they were both over 1.5 seconds of the lead McLaren’s pace.
As such Aston Martin made the call to change the set-up of both cars thus breaking parc ferme regulations and necessitating a pit lane start.
“Fernando and Lance will start today’s Sprint from the pit lane after the team opted to make set-up changes to both cars,” the team confirmed.
Having failed to score a single point in F1’s latest triple header, Aston Martin team boss Mike Krack confirmed after the Mexican Grand Prix that not all the parts in Aston Martin’s latest upgrade package were working.
As such, he said: “You’ve seen, for example, the front wing stayed on, but other parts we could not keep.”
But reverting to their Japanese spec floor did little to help the overall pace of the AMR24 on the Friday of the Brazilian Grand Prix.
“We didn’t have the pace in Sprint qualifying,” Alonso said after exit qualifying at the first hurdle.
“We had to make some changes to the car after Free Practice 1 due to the bumpy track conditions, which we knew would be detrimental to our pace.
“It’s going to be difficult to score points in the Sprint, so we have to keep ourselves focused on Sunday.”
Aston Martin aren’t in starting from the pit lane with Sauber also changing the set-up on Zhou Guanyu’s car after he qualified P20.
Speaking after Sprint qualy, Zhou said it was not his day.
“FP1 showed that the track is very bumpy and that we’ll have to work hard to find the right setup. Sprint qualifying was quite a disappointing session for me as, unfortunately, the timing for our final run was mismanaged.
“By the time I was in a position to start the lap, the chequered flag was already out. While it’s frustrating since it ruined our starting position for tomorrow’s sprint, overtaking is possible, and we’ll see what we can do.
“As for now, we need to understand what went wrong today: tomorrow is a new day to make things better.”
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