Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll reckoned DRS that only functioned intermittently impacted on Aston Martin’s prospects during Formula 1 qualifying in Azerbaijan.
Aston Martin entered the weekend second in the Constructors’ Championship but was also wary that its slightly draggy AMR23 may not be ideally suited to the high-speed Baku City Circuit.
Both Aston Martin drivers made Q3 but wound up in the lower half of the shootout, with Alonso sixth and Stroll ninth, sealing their grid spots for Sunday’s race.
“I’m satisfied with sixth position on the grid for Sunday after we lost a little bit of performance today with a DRS issue,” said Alonso.
“It’s a long weekend ahead of us and there are plenty of opportunities with this new format, so hopefully we can make up some positions and perform well tomorrow in the Sprint.
“It’s very close between a number of teams, so we’ll need to try and be more consistent throughout the rest of the weekend.”
Stroll, at the venue where he scored his maiden podium in 2017, said: “It was close out there today; the car felt good and I had the confidence to push hard which is a huge benefit around a circuit like this.
“Unfortunately, we were having intermittent DRS issues throughout the session and I completely lost DRS on the pit straight during Q3. It cost us a fair bit of time but we’ll be doing our best to solve the issue before running tomorrow.
“I enjoyed the new format today; it was exciting to go straight into qualifying and it makes for a more interesting Friday.
“We know it’ll be a challenge to do it all again first thing tomorrow morning without running beforehand, but I’m looking forward to it.”
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