Alonso gives damning verdict on Aston Martin qualifying

Fernando Alonso bemoaned Aston Martin's qualifying performance at the United States Grand Prix and conceded the rest of the weekend would be a "test".

The Spaniard will start Sunday's race at the Circuit of the Americas from 17th with his Q1 elimination marking the first time he has failed to make it into the top 10 this season.

Aston Martin arrived in Austin with its final major update of the year with changes made to the floor and the diffuser but with limited running time in practice by virtue of F1's Sprint weekend format and brake issues presented to further curtail FP1 running, Alonso was left to rue a difficult session.

“It [the lap pace] was the maximum,” explained Alonso.

“The out-lap was not ideal, especially with the traffic, it was very badly managed - I think I crossed the line one second within the limit. I started the lap too close to the cars in front.

“But the lap felt ok. Let’s see if we can have a good Sprint because the Grand Prix is heavily compromised now.

“[There were] too many unknowns in terms of how to operate the package on the new car. So yeah, I think we went a bit blind into qualifying and obviously we see the results.

“So nothing we can do now, we are in parc fermé, we use this weekend as a test for next year as well, even if they are painful. So let’s see what we can learn in the remaining sessions.”

Stroll mirrors Alonso

Teammate Lance Stroll suffered the worst of the brake issues and was restricted to just two meaningful laps in practice before falling in Q1 for the first race in succession.

“It didn’t feel like it was a bad session,” said the Canadian.

“I actually felt like I was OK in the car, even after no running in FP1 I felt like I got to grips with the car pretty quickly but we just weren’t quick enough.”