Aston Martin Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso admitted he was relieved to seize third during a “quite stressful” Sprint Qualifying session at the Chinese Grand Prix.
Alonso progressed through to the final segment once again this season and capitalised on rain providing unpredictable conditions to beat both Red Bull and Ferraris.
The Spaniard, whose last pole position came in damp conditions at Hockenheim in 2012, trailed behind Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton to secure third on the grid.
Like Hamilton, Alonso conceded that the late precipitation flattered Aston Martin’s competitiveness as he wound up seventh in SQ1 before dropping one place in SQ2.
“Quite stressful to be honest, I mean Q1 we were just looking at the radar and the threat of rain was there since the first minute,” Alonso said.
“We made some progress in Q1 and then Q2 just because we were P8 or P9, so yeah not super competitive on the dry
“And then it rained at the end in Q3 and every lap was a little bit different conditions, the tyres they were a bit better every lap but the circuit was slightly worse with more rain, so it was difficult to judge the level of grip and the level of risk that you wanted to apply so yeah at the end extremely happy.”
Alonso did not venture out on the Soft compound in the sole practice session earlier on and placed 19th, 2.6 seconds behind his pacesetting team-mate Lance Stroll.
Asked about the team’s long-run pace in China, Alonso said: “Not really a clear idea yet but we will find out tomorrow, we have a lot of racing laps now in the weekend.
“The Sprint race tomorrow and obviously the main race on Sunday so yeah let’s see if we can qualify well again tomorrow.”
Stroll was unable to replicate his late practice run as he set the slowest time in the second stage, resigning him to starting 15th for tomorrow’s truncated Sprint race.
“Yeah, it didn’t feel great,” Stroll bemoaned. “Just no grip, really. There’s not going to be much we can do in the Sprint. We’re 15th.”
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