The first qualifying session of the weekend at Baku followed just a single practice session, meaning the drivers had to get re-assess the circuit and get comfortable with the setup fairly quickly.
Nyck De Vries and Pierre Gasly brought out the red flag in Q1 following a misjudgement in their braking point and sending their cars into the barrier at turn 3.
Aston Martin drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were able to avoid the mayhem at the start of qualifying and made it into Q3 with Alonso qualifying P6 and Stroll lining up on the fifth row of the grid in P9 for Sunday’s race.
Both Aston Martin drivers experienced DRS issues throughout qualifying meaning it only worked a few times throughout the session, two-time world champion Fernando Alonso commented on the issue saying:“I am satisfied with sixth position on the grid for Sunday after we lost a bit of performance today with the DRS issue.”
Team principal Mike Krack added to Alonso comments: “Both Fernando and Lance did well under challenging circumstances today.
“The single practice session was quite straightforward, but going into qualifying we experienced an ongoing DRS issue across both cars, which meant it was only working intermittently.”
Canadian driver, Lance Stroll, wasn’t overly satisfied with his P9.
“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.”
Aston Martin’s meteoric rise this season has seen them score more points in the first three races than they did in the whole of the 2022 season, and with their strong performance being solidified with a good qualifying result, it’s only logical to assume that race wins aren’t far away from being within reach for the team.
