Alonso lacked 'trust' after qualifying off

Fernando Alonso stated he lost trust in his Aston Martin car after a trip through the gravel during Q3 in Australia.

The Spaniard suffered a snap of oversteer as he entered Turn 6 at the Albert Park Circuit, causing him to skate through the pebbles at high speed.

Alonso was able to have another attempt at a fast lap but was the slowest of the drivers inside the top 10, lacking five-tenths to teammate Lance Stroll.

The Aston Martin duo will start alongside one another on the fifth row of the grid on Sunday.

Reflecting on his session, Alonso told media including RacingNews365: “I think we felt a little less competitive this weekend.

“FP1, FP2 and FP3, it was not as fast as Jeddah for example, we were P1 in F2 and P2 in FP3 and it was not the case here.

“[It's] a little bit more problematic weekend in terms of pace and then in Q3 on the first attempt, I went off at Turn 6 in the gravel.

“Then [with] the last new set of tyres, I was not fully confident anymore [with] the car, and I could not trust it.”

Alonso expects 'not an easy race'

Last year's Australian Grand Prix ended in chaos with late red flag restarts causing multiple incidents.

While Alonso is anticipating more disruptions, the two-time World Champion highlighted that managing tyres will be a major concern for the drivers.

“There's a lot of safety cars, a lot of things always going on in Melbourne,” he said.

“I think it's not going to be an easy race for the tyre, graining is a concern for everybody.

“Let's see if we can manage the tyres a bit better than the others. We start both cars in the top 10 in the points and we want to finish in the points with both cars.”