HONDA The Power of Dreams

Sprint|20th

Qualifying|22nd|1 min 33.025s

Sprint|21st

Qualifying|21st|1 min 32.863s

The British Grand Prix Sprint was held at 12:00 p.m. local time on Saturday, July 4. Following Friday’s Sprint Qualifying, Fernando Alonso qualified 21st and Lance Stroll 22nd for the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team (AMAF1).

With several cars opting to start from the pit lane, Alonso lined up 20th on the grid and Stroll 21st for the 17-lap Sprint. Both AMAF1 cars started on Soft tires.

After making strong starts, Alonso completed the opening lap in 18th, while Stroll moved up to 20th. On Lap 2, Alonso made contact with another car and dropped back to 21st. Stroll then struggled for pace and was overtaken by cars behind, slipping to 20th. On Lap 8, Alonso passed Stroll to regain 20th as the Sprint entered its closing stages. On lap 14, Stroll pitted for Medium tires before rejoining in 21st. The order remained unchanged to the finish, with Alonso classified 20th and Stroll 21st.

Qualifying began at 4:00 p.m. local time in sunny conditions, with an ambient temperature of 25°C and a track temperature of 40°C.

During the 18-minute Q1 session, Alonso and Stroll each used three sets of new Soft tires and completed three runs. Alonso aborted his first flying lap and returned to the pits. On his second run, a yellow flag caused by another car’s incident forced him to abandon his flying lap. He set a time of 1 min 33.025s on the following lap. Alonso then improved to 1 min 32.888s on his final attempt, but the lap was deleted for exceeding track limits.

Stroll improved on each of his three runs, setting his fastest time of 1 min 32.863s on his final attempt. The final Q1 classification saw Stroll finish 21st and Alonso 22nd, with neither driver progressing to Q2.

“It wasn't a surprise for us today, and it was difficult for us to optimize everything with just one practice session. I was happy with the laps in Sprint Qualifying and we did a good job as a team, but it's still far away from where we want to be. We will see what we can do tomorrow in the Sprint.”

“It's another difficult Qualifying session for us with the car exactly the same as recent race weekends. This is our position right now, but we do have some positives to take away, with good deployment and energy management. We've also had good starts as we showed again in the Sprint earlier today. Everyone is working hard to improve, so we'll see what we can learn tomorrow.”

“It's going to be another challenging weekend here at Silverstone. We'll focus on what we can control, but we know we've just got to be patient and wait for the upgrades to come. We all keep pushing hard, both at track and over the road at the AMRTC (AMR Technology Campus).”

“We didn't get the setup right for the Sprint, but we made some changes and got it in a better window for Qualifying. I felt happier in the car. We're still not where we want to be and so it doesn't count for much, but it felt like a good lap.”

“We collected the data we could from the Sprint with both cars running on the Soft tires and Lance pitting for the Mediums in the final few laps. Fernando's Sprint was impacted by contact with Sergio Perez, which cost him some time, although he was able to finish the race.

“There were no surprises in Qualifying given our current performance level. We'll do what we can tomorrow to extract what we can from the race.”

“Free practice was a busy session as it’s the only hour of practice before Sprint qualifying. As I have previously mentioned, this circuit is challenging to optimize energy management at.

“We had completed a driving simulation prior to this weekend, so today we used this data and the telemetry from practice to adjust our settings. We focused on optimizing our drivability and Sprint qualifying itself was trouble-free. Unfortunately, the result is the same as the last events and it’s not where we want to be, and it will be like this until the upgrades arrive.

“Tomorrow, we have the Sprint race and then another opportunity with qualifying where we can adjust settings.”

“Today, we collaborated well with the mechanics, engineers and drivers at the AMAF1 Team, to find improvements throughout the sessions.

“We have progressed the settings of the power unit, including energy management deployment and drivability to maximize our package in the Sprint and qualifying, while also looking at tomorrow’s Grand Prix.

“We look forward to racing at Silverstone as the crowd is always special.”