Aston drivers Alonso and Stroll to start Brazil F1 sprint from pitlane

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will begin Brazil’s dash race from the pitlane after making sweeping modifications to their Aston Martin F1 automobiles.

Alonso and Stroll each struggled for pace in Friday’s dash qualifying, solely managing sixteenth and nineteenth respectively.

In response to the end result and in a need to additional hone in on their automotive set-up for the rest of the weekend, each Aston Martins have undergone modifications underneath parme situations, which implies they’ve to start out from the pitlane.

The FIA doc specified that each the bodywork specification and the suspension set-up of Alonso’s and Stroll’s automobiles have been modified in a single day.

Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu, who certified final, has additionally had his suspension set-up modified and can line up behind the 2 Astons at pit exit.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24

Picture by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Photographs

Talking after qualifying, Alonso had already instructed that he would deal with the 24-lap dash as a observe session, calling the race “ineffective” from his lowly grid place.

“The dash for us actually means nothing, as there are solely eight automobiles scoring factors,” the two-time world champion mentioned. “And even if you’re eighth or seventh, you rating one level or two. So simply the format would not reward something to be quick on Friday evening and Saturday.

“For us there’s far more give attention to Sunday, in order that’s the best way we deal with the dash weekends. A bit of bit ineffective till Saturday afternoon. And it is the case on this one as effectively.”

Alonso defined set-up experiments following Friday’s sole observe session had additionally been one of many the explanation why the Aston Martin crew’s qualifying session had been so low-key.

“We did not have the tempo in qualifying,” he mentioned. “We made some modifications additionally after FP1 that we knew have been possibly detrimental to the tempo of the automotive. However we needed to preserve ourselves targeted on Sunday greater than Saturday, so for us, the dash is extra a free observe.”