Alonso “not in a happy place yet”

In brief

Alonso “not in a happy place yet”

Fernando Alonso says he is still not fully comfortable with his Aston Martin in Austin despite qualifying eighth on the grid for today’s US Grand Prix.

“I think it’s a good result, for sure,” Alonso said. “It has been a tough weekend so far in terms of feeling the car.

“We made set-up changes after FP1 and after the sprint race this morning. We’re still experimenting a little bit, so I’m not in a happy place yet. But the result is good. Hopefully it allow us to score some points tomorrow. That’s the target.”

Being out of sequence hurt Williams – Albon

Alexander Albon suspects that being out of sequence with many of their rivals at the end of Q1 contributed to both him and Williams team mate Franco Colapinto being knocked out of qualifying at the first hurdle.

“The biggest issue we faced was that I came out of the pit lane maybe a lap earlier than everyone else, so when we started our push lap, about nine cars had just come out,” Albon explained to the official F1 channel.

“I was overtaking a car almost every corner, and there was a lot of dirty air, which makes a big difference here.”

Alpine fined for unsafe release

Alpine have been handed a €5,000 (£4,166) fine after the US Grand Prix stewards found that Pierre Gasly was released in front of Max Verstappen towards the end of Q3 in a dangerous manner.

Verstappen had to take “significant evasive action” to avoid a collision, according to the stewards, necessitating the fine. Gasly will keep his seventh place on the grid for today’s race.

Links

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