After a brief high from Fernando Alonso on Friday, Aston Martin hit the hard ground of Formula 1 reality again in qualifying. Alonso only finished 16th in Monaco and had to park his car after Q1. Lance Stroll at least made it to Q2, but couldn’t get past 14th place. The reason for this: the traffic. There were hardly any chances to make amends in the race.
Fernando Alonso: P7 possible, but traffic costs five tenths
However, the true pace of the AMR24 does not reflect the qualifying result. Up until turn eleven, Fernando Alonso was on the way to improvement in Q1, Q2 and Q3 would probably have been possible. A place in the top 5, however, was less likely. But the traffic ruined the chance of a fight for it anyway.
“The traffic killed our qualifying. I think I lost three tenths coming out of turn eleven and two tenths in the last corner. There were three cars parked there,” said Alonso. He is not angry with the other drivers, however. “You can’t blame anyone, they can’t just disappear. This is Monaco and the cars are very big. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
So what would have been possible without traffic? “P7 or 8 was possible. If I subtract those five tenths from my lap, I’m first. So I don’t think anyone maximized their pace in Q1. It was more like 80 to 90 percent,” said Alonso.
However, it is questionable whether Alonso would have put his car in first place without traffic. Alonso was faster in sector one than before, but in sector two he did not make any personal improvement in any of the mini sectors up to turn eleven. Nevertheless, at least progressing would have been possible.
For Lance Stroll, however, it would probably not have gone much further than Q2 either way. “I think eleventh place was the maximum possible,” said the Canadian.
Alonso: You usually have to do the job here on Saturday
This is a particularly bad sign for Aston Martin in the race. Although Alonso and Stroll moved up two places due to the disqualifications of Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, P12 and P14 are no guarantee of points in Monaco.
“It will be very difficult. You usually have to do the job right here on Saturday, but we didn’t manage that today,” Alonso said. Instead of points, the veteran has a different goal for the race. “We have to bring the car back in one piece. Everyone is trying to bring updates here, so we don’t have that many parts to swap.”