Just 17 cars on sprint race grid as trio choose to start from pit lane · RaceFans

Only 17 cars will line up on the grid for today’s sprint race as three drivers have chosen to start from the pit lane.

The trio are taking advantage of the opportunity to change their car’s set-ups before the race.

All three drivers were eliminated in the first round of qualifying for the sprint race yesterday. Fernando Alonso will give up 16th on the grid, while Lance Stroll and Zhou Guanyu qualified on the back row.

The FIA confirmed Aston Martin have changed the bodywork specification and suspension set-ups on their drivers’ cars. The team reverted to an earlier version of its floor this weekend in a bid to get on top of the handling problems both drivers have complained about in recent races.

Alonso said yesterday the team intended to treat today’s 24-lap race like a practice session, echoing his remarks from the previous sprint event in Austin.

Sauber has also made changes to the suspension set-up of Zhou’s car. He was unable to complete his final run in qualifying as his team sent him out too late and the chequered flag had fallen by the time he reached the timing line. His team mate Valtteri Bottas reached the second round of qualifying and will start 15th.

The drivers’ penalties will promote Esteban Ocon to 16th on the grid ahead of Yuki Tsunoda.

F1 changed its sprint event regulations this year by moving the extra race to the first session slot on Saturday, before qualifying for the grand prix, and allowing teams to change their cars’ set-up between the two. However teams appear to be increasingly willing to forfeit poor starting position on the sprint race grid in order to test set-up changes to their car before committing to them for qualifying.

Today’s race is the fifth of six sprint races this year. Of these, only the first in Shanghai saw all 20 cars take the start from the grid.

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