‘We tried all or nothing’ says Alonso after both Aston Martins crash heavily in Sao Paulo qualifying

The good news for Aston Martin after qualifying in Brazil is that both cars are provisionally in the top 10 on the grid. The bad news is that both Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso ended the session with their cars in the barriers.

It means the Aston Martin mechanics face a race against time to get them repaired in time for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Nevertheless, given the impressive pace they showed in the mixed conditions, it could yet be a strong afternoon for the team in green.

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“Yeah, I mean we are taking huge risk,” said Alonso of their qualifying, after he went straight on into the Turn 11 wall. “We are the 10th fastest team in the dry and then we were P2 in Qualifying 2, so that shows the level of commitment we had.

“I think Lance and myself, unfortunately, we tried all or nothing. I was fighting for pole today and as I said, we’re the 10th fastest car so these things can happen.”

Stroll, too, wasn’t ruling out a good race, despite his brush with the Turn 3 barriers in Q2 – an off that brought out the red flags and effectively ended Max Verstappen’s hopes of progressing to Q3 – saying: “Yeah, we’ll see what the weather does this afternoon.”

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Of his crash he added: “Just a very sudden… suddenly lost the car. I think I had [George] Russell in front of me, so maybe a bit of dirty air and then I just had a big slide. Conditions were tricky. Grip out there was very sketchy, so yeah, that was it.”

Assuming Aston Martin get both cars fixed in time to take to the grid, rather than opting for a pit lane start, Alonso – whose car looked to be more heavily damaged than his team mate’s – will line up a provisional ninth, with Stroll 10th.