Alonso rues ‘poor performance’ during qualifying in Miami as he explains target from P15 on the grid

Fernando Alonso is aiming to “learn some things” during the Miami Grand Prix after a difficult qualifying session left him down in P15 on the grid, marking the first time in 2024 that he has failed to reach Q3.

It had been a tough start to the day for Aston Martin at the Miami International Autodrome, with Alonso and team mate Lance Stroll making contact amid a multi-car collision on Lap 1 of the Sprint, an incident that forced Stroll to retire while Alonso crossed the line down in P17.

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Their fortunes did not improve much in qualifying later in the afternoon, as both cars were eliminated in Q2. Stroll will line up in 11th, while Alonso suffered his worst qualifying performance of the year by ending the session in 15th.

Reflecting afterwards on why the squad seemed to be having a difficult time, Alonso admitted that changes made to the car after the Sprint did not appear to have worked in their favour.

“We seem to [be] struggling a lot today compared to yesterday – we were P7 and P8 in yesterday’s qualifying and we are out of Q3 [today],” said the two-time world champion. “In my case, quite poor performance [in] Q2, P15.

“I could not improve that much. We made some set-up changes also from the session this morning to now – looking at the times, I would say that didn’t work as expected. But, yeah, this is a Sprint weekend and it’s tough.

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“Within two tenths you can be P8 or P15, we are in the back side of that group. We’ve been in the good side of that group a few times already this year, like in China we were P3, only one tenth off P9, something like that.

"So yeah, let’s take it, let’s learn some things tomorrow in the race and we’ll see.”

Pushed further on whether Sunday will mainly be used as a learning experience, Alonso responded: “Yeah, I think it’s going to be very difficult to score points in my case.

"I think Lance hopefully has a better chance starting P11, already close to the points, but for me I think learning a few things in race-pace will be the main priority.”

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While Stroll was closer to reaching Q3 – having only missed out by two hundredths of a second – he acknowledged that the team still needed to understand their lack of performance.

“It looks like we weren’t super competitive today, so we’ve got to look into it,” the Canadian commented. “Hopefully we can try and score some points tomorrow.”