In a complicated qualifying session for the 2024 F1 Miami GP held on the Spanish night this Saturday, Fernando Alonso fell in the second round, being left out of Q3 for the first time this year and for only the third time since he signed for Aston .
The Asturian revealed that in Q2 he went out with used tires (albeit slightly) and his teammate Lance Stroll (classified 11th) with new ones to experiment with, and admits that the bet failed: “We believed it was a little better to go out with used tires after a lap in the morning on the way to the grid, because we thought it would be better. There is not enough time in a sprint weekend to try all these things. The other car came out with new ones, I with used ones, trying to get either of them. could move on to Q3, none of the three of us have been able to do it, and let’s see if tomorrow we can get some points, especially with Lance, who is on the verge of it, and save a bit of the weekend, which at the moment is being very complicated”.
Summing up the classification at the Miami circuit, he explained that after having been fifteenth in the first round and in the second, it was clear that there was not much more: “It is a bit of a disappointing classification for us, P15 in Q1, P15 in the Q2, so I didn’t have much room for improvement today.”
“We made some setup changes between this morning’s session and the time trial, and looking at the result now, they probably didn’t work as we expected, they were a step back and we are a little less competitive than normal.”
Pedro de la Rosa, Aston Martin Racing ambassador, explained in DAZN F1 that those changes were mainly in a change of rear wing and adjustments to the suspension, but that in his opinion it was a matter of the car’s difficulty in getting the tire up to temperature.
Continuing with the analysis, Alonso recalled that the zone of pursuers behind Red Bull is so tight that sometimes the coin comes out heads and sometimes tails: “Anyway, with two tenths you can be P8 or P15, we are on the wrong side of that group, as we have been on the good side in the last races, you know, when we were P5 in Japan or P3 in China, it was completely unexpected. So yeah, a tough day”:
“I think it’s going to be a tough race. Hopefully Lance, starting eleventh, can score some points. With me, fifteenth, I think it’s going to be very difficult.”
Finally, regarding a setback that he saw on his last lap, and explaining whether it had been a mistake or he simply went too long, he commented: “I was understeering a lot at high speed and oversteering a lot at low speed and I felt like… Yes, there was no grip in the car in any of the runs. As I said, not only in Q2, but also in Q1 I had problems and finished 15th. So yes, it was a very tough session.
