Ongoing DRS problems on both cars mean that Aston Martin endured its weakest qualifying session of the year in Baku. Sixth place for Fernando Alonso and ninth place for Lance Stroll meant the worst qualifying results for the two drivers.
“Yes, it could have been a little better,” says Alonso, who still has a clean sheet in the team-internal qualifying duel. He already had to struggle with a few problems in practice, which then manifested themselves in qualifying. “That cost us a few tenths,” he says angrily. 0.076 seconds would have put him in fifth place, 0.237 in fourth.
Aston Martin cannot yet say what led to the DRS problem, but according to team boss Mike Krack it “only worked sporadically”. It was the same for Lance Stroll, who had to do without the folding wing in Q3. “That’s just lap time that’s missing on the straights,” the Canadian says angrily. “That was frustrating.”
Nevertheless, the team boss praises the fact that both drivers made it back to Q3 “without any problems”: “The team and the drivers did a good job by mastering a wild session with yellow and red flags,” says Krack.
New format could help Aston Martin
“We had the potential to be a bit further up the grid but I think we’re well positioned to fight for points on Sunday and this is a track where overtaking is possible,” he said. “Our focus is now on Saturday and getting as many points as possible in the sprint.”
From Aston Martin’s point of view, that’s also the good thing: The new format means you can still fight for something on both Saturday and Sunday: “It’s only Friday,” Alonso tries a well-known Formula 1 quote. “We still have a long weekend ahead of us. One more qualifying session, one race and then another race. So there are still many opportunities to gain places.”
By the way, the Spaniard is a friend of the new format so far: “I’m looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning and knowing that you get in the car and it’s already Q1. There’s no warm-up, no training. We have to be ready be for it, and I like that challenge.”
Stroll sees it similarly: “I like the format of the weekend. I found it exciting to start straight away this morning and this afternoon,” he says. “So I’m looking forward to more action tomorrow.”
