During an exciting and very challenging qualifying session, Fernando Alonso managed to qualify third on the starting grid for the sprint race. Naturally, Alonso was satisfied with that, but he also admitted that it was a stressful qualifying.
“To be honest, it was quite stressful!” Alonso replied when asked how his sprint qualifying went. “During SQ1 we almost exclusively looked at the rain radar and from the first minute there was the threat of rain.”
We made some progress during SQ1 and then we just managed to get through SQ2 as we were only eighth and ninth? We weren’t super competitive in dry conditions. Then it rained towards the end of SQ3 and the track conditions were a little different every lap.”
“The tyres performed a little better every lap, but the circuit was a little less good due to more and more rain, so it was very difficult to estimate the grip level and the amount of risk you wanted to take. In the end I am very happy!”
As far as the sprint race is concerned, Alonso expects a more difficult task, depending on the weather conditions. The fact is that the Aston Martin F1 car can normally surprise more in the rain than when there are dry conditions.
“We don’t really have a clear picture of where we are, we’ll find out tomorrow,” Alonso said. “There are a lot of laps this weekend where you are racing, there is the sprint race and of course also the main race on Sunday. Let us wait and see whether we can also qualify well for the race tomorrow.”