Sprint race “means nothing” for Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin will treat today’s sprint race as if it was another practice session as they are unlikely to gain anything from it.

Both Aston Martin drivers were eliminated in the first round of qualifying for the first of F1’s two races at the Interlagos circuit this weekend. The struggling team has reverted to the floor specification it introduced at the Japanese Grand Prix seven months ago.

“We didn’t have the pace in qualifying,” said Alonso, who will start 16th. “We made some changes also after FP1 that we knew that they were maybe detrimental to the pace of the car but we had to keep ourselves focussed for Sunday more than Saturday.

“[In] the sprint race, it’s unlikely that we’ll score points. For us it’s more a free practice.”

Under F1’s revised regulations introduced this year, teams have the opportunity to alter their cars’ set-ups between the sprint races and qualifying for the grand prix. Alonso says Aston Martin will focus on making the most of that opportunity.

“The sprint [race] for us really means nothing as there are only eight cars scoring points and even if you are eighth or seventh, you score one point or two,” he said. “So the format doesn’t reward anything to be fast on Friday night and Saturday, for us it’s much more focussed on Sunday. Sunday [is what] we need to put all our beans on.

“So that’s the way we treat this weekends, a little bit useless until Saturday afternoon, and it’s the case for this one as well.”

Alonso’s team mate Lance Stroll qualified on the back row of the grid. “We just didn’t have the pace to fight for more today,” he said.

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