Qualifying in Azerbaijan left several stories for Formula 1. Among those, Fernando Alonso, who will start from the P8 position in Baku, described his lap as “out of all logic.”
The #14 Aston Martin got into Q2 after barely making the cut with the 15th fastest lap of Q1. The panorama for the Spanish driver, however, changed when in Q2, he placed fifth to position himself quietly in Q3, where he will finally start P8 in round 17 of the 2024 Formula 1 championship, while his teammate will be taking off from P14.
“Yeah, definitely a big change,” said Alonso about the improvement shown in his AMR24 when he made it through Q2.
“I was P15 in Q1, which was very worrying, we would have been out if it wasn’t for Norris [the McLaren driver was P17 and out in Q1] and I was pessimistic into Q2, but then in Q2 we were P5 and I think that was an out of all logic lap,” he stated.
“With everyone so close, I mean it is not a lottery, but it must be a perfect lap to be at the top and today was one of those.
“We made a bigger step in terms of performance and confidence, so hopefully we can keep this level into tomorrow’s race.”
Despite the good result, the 43-year-old made it clear that there is no confidence in the Silverstone-based team’s car.
“Obviously, we went into qualifying with a very open mind in terms of how fast we can be, because it has been a little bit difficult to read the times until now, but with no confidence in the car.
“We cannot hide the fact that we were struggling with the car the whole weekend. This circuit with extremely low grip that we found this year, is the same for everybody, like 3 seconds every session slower than last year, plus, the low-downforce-nature of the track.
“If you don’t have the confidence in the car it becomes a very tough weekend.
“And we don’t have that confidence in the car that we lost a few weekends ago. So yeah, it was tricky.”
Finally, the two-time World Champion was questioned about whether the team’s decision to put the old floor on his car influenced the pace shown in qualifying.
“I thought I was driving very well in 18-19, but if you put it down to the car, I take it,” he joked.
“You never know. As I said, until the Q2 lap, the older floor was not giving us anything very different than what we’ve been doing the last few weekends. I think it’s difficult to tell, but we give more data to the team to keep understanding the car.
“Yeah, definitely we have less downforce than the others. It’s a strategy that we think can help us into the race.
“We followed that direction also last year, to be fast in the last sector. It helps you to defend and it helps you to attack. If there are any restarts, you have that extra speed when you go in power. Obviously, we will struggle more with the tyre degradation, but it’s the way we think is the best thing for tomorrow.”
