Friday proved difficult for us in Austin with Fernando and Lance eliminated in the first part of Qualifying for the United States Grand Prix.
Fernando was compromised on his out lap at the end of Q1 and qualified 17th for Sunday’s race.
Lance qualified 19th having been limited to just five laps of practice due to overheating brakes.
We have another chance in tomorrow’s Sprint Shootout that sets the grid for the afternoon’s Sprint race.
Read what Fernando, Lance, and Team Principal Mike Krack said on Friday in Austin.
“Not an ideal Qualifying for us with both cars out in Q1.
“There was a lot of traffic today and we completed our out lap with around one second left to the chequered flag.
“We started too close to the cars in front. I don’t think this helped. It was very close between lots of cars with just a few tenths being the difference.
“We had a difficult FP1 with some issues and we weren’t able to optimise the new package we brought to Austin. We are in parc fermé now so we will see what we can do tomorrow with hopefully a cleaner day.”
“Going into Qualifying with only five laps in FP1 was always going to be a challenge, but I actually felt like I got to grips with the AMR23 pretty quickly.
“The problem today was that we just didn’t have the pace.
“We’d hoped for a bit more, so it’s a disappointing result, but this is a good track to race at and overtaking is possible, so there will be opportunities on Sunday.”
Mike Krack, Team Principal
“It was a very close Qualifying session and we did not optimise things today.
“I don’t think our grid positions reflect our true potential.
“During free practice, we suffered with overheating front brakes on both cars and resolving that issue cost us valuable preparation time.
“When it came to Qualifying, we were on the backfoot, and with such a tight grid it cost us. The final moments of the session were not ideal with queuing in the pitlane. It was then all quite rushed, with the clock ticking down, and that impacted the preparation of their final laps.
“We can do better and we have to.”
Source : Astromatir
