Fernando Alonso reveals that Aston Martin focused on race pace during Friday practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix, leaving its position in the pecking order unclear.
Aston Martin elected to introduce several upgrades to its car at last weekend’s United States Grand Prix, but the team were caught out by the intricacies of the Sprint format.
Having slumped to a double Q1 elimination in qualifying, the Silverstone squad opted to withdraw both cars from the starting grid, reverting Alonso to the pre-Austin AMR23.
Alonso and team-mate Lance Stroll managed to climb through into the top 10 in Sunday’s grand prix, although the Spaniard’s race would be curtailed by floor damage.
With Mexico marking a return to the conventional weekend structure, Alonso stressed that Aston Martin spent all of Friday gaining a better handle on its updates.
“Yeah it was good,” Alonso assessed. “We focused a lot on race pace today and high fuel running and things like that.
“It’s difficult to read the times but the car felt good. Understanding the package more and more.”
Aston Martin appeared to be struggling to extract speed from its revised package once again in Mexico as Alonso and Stroll wound up 18th and 20th respectively in FP2.
However, Alonso insists that he was content with the balance of his car on the opening day and insists there’s more to come once the team pivots towards performance runs.
“Yeah, felt good, felt happy,” he added. “As I said, we were working a lot on race pace and high fuel runs. Tomorrow when we add performance, we will see where we are.”
Alonso and team-mate Stroll ended the second practice hour as the only two drivers in the entire field who failed to register their fastest lap time on the Soft tyre.
The Spaniard had attempted to conduct a push lap on the red-walled compound but span at Turn 9, ruining his set of tyres.
“Yeah, I lost the car and, nothing [more to say],” he summarised.
Stroll’s attempt to get a qualifying simulation under his belt ahead of qualifying day was hampered by a wheel nut issue that confined him to the Aston Martin garage.
After managing to end his barren five-race run without a point in Austin last weekend, Stroll was coy on Aston Martin’s prospects at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Asked how the car felt in the laps he did complete, Stroll answered: “Yeah, low grip. Always slippery here with the high altitude.”
He added: “We will see what we can improve tonight and see what we can do tomorrow.”
