Fernando Alonso showed that his team, Aston Martin, is improving. He finished in third place in the qualifying round for the Chinese Grand Prix, just behind the Red Bull team.
Alonso knows that his car, the AMR24, is better at going fast for one lap than it is for longer races. He doesn’t expect to keep his third-place position during the race in Shanghai. But he thinks it’s still a good achievement for him and his team.
“I expect a difficult race,” he said. “We are slower than the Ferraris, slower than the McLarens and probably the Mercedes. We are outqualifying them often and then in the race we just need to wait and see when they come, how fast they come and how many laps we can defend those positions.”
Alonso also said, “But we can’t say sorry for being too fast in qualifying, so let’s take it.”
During the sprint race in Shanghai, Alonso stayed in third place for most of the time. He had to defend his position from the Ferraris until the end of the race.
Now, he’s preparing for a tough race where he might have to fight to keep his position against Red Bull’s strongest rival.
Carlos Sainz from Ferrari said they might have a hard time moving up in the race. He ended up seventh in qualifying, one place behind his teammate Charles Leclerc.
Sainz said, “I think we need to focus on more than the Red Bull and just see how, in terms of race pace, we can overcome the two McLarens and the Aston.”
He also mentioned, “My feeling is we can come back, but we need to show a much better pace than [the sprint].”
