On Saturday, the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team endured a disappointing Sprint race at the Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.
The race was delayed due to bad weather, with Fernando Alonso starting the race from 15th place but suffered a DNF after sliding off the track in tricky conditions and getting stuck in the gravel; speaking following the race, he commented saying:
“I was following very closely behind Nico [Hülkenberg] at the entry to Pouhon; I lost downforce, touched the white line, and just lost the car. Trying to find grip – and guessing the grip levels in each corner – was tricky. It was very slippery, and it was my mistake.
“But we weren’t in the points anyway – and with just 11 racing laps, it was always going to be difficult to score today.
“Still, these things are better happening today than tomorrow. We turn the page.”
Lance Stroll started the race from 14th place and came home in P11 and speaking following the action the Canadian commented saying:
“It was pretty tough out there today. The wet conditions made the visibility very poor and the car just didn’t have the pace we needed. It hasn’t been the day we were hoping for, but the weather should be a bit more stable tomorrow – so we’ll push hard and see what we can do.”
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will line up ninth and tenth respectively in Sunday’s race and speaking following the Sprint, Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team Principal Mike Krack commented saying:
We saw more sunshine and showers in Spa today, giving us the full range of changeable track conditions. Like the rest of the grid, we chose to switch to the Intermediate tyres as quickly as possible in the Sprint, but we did not manage to progress into the points from our low starting positions.
“Fernando unfortunately dropped out of the Sprint, but the car did not sustain damage. So, we move on from a challenging day where we did not optimise things. We can hopefully convert our top-10 starting positions for the Grand Prix into points tomorrow.”