06/04/2024
NEWS STORY
Fernando Alonso: "I am very happy with fifth position today. It's always a very special experience Qualifying in Suzuka, with the low fuel loads and fresh tyres and everything felt good in the car today. Perhaps it's a little unexpected to be as competitive as we were. Looking back at last year, we were over one-second from pole position in Suzuka and now we are only four tenths away, so it seems we are going in the right direction. It's too soon to say whether our updates have made a significant difference, but we'll look at all the data we have. We have usually been faster in Qualifying compared to the Race, so let's see what happens on Sunday."
Lance Stroll: "I just didn't have the pace I needed in Qualifying today and we don't yet understand why. I think I was pushing to the limit of what my car was capable of, but I was lacking the speed to get out of Q3. The update package seems to be working on Fernando's AMR24, so we'll take a look this evening to see if there's anything else that could have been impacting my car. There's a lot of work to do ahead of the Grand Prix; we'll have to make the most of any opportunities that come our way tomorrow."
Mike Krack, Team Principal: "A bittersweet Qualifying in Suzuka. Our target is always to get both cars into Q3. We did not achieve that, and so we need to have a closer look at Lance's AMR24 as the gap between both cars was substantial.
"As the sessions progressed, Fernando managed to get more and more out of the car. We can be pleased with P5.
"The entire team has done a great job to prepare this update package. We worked with discipline, ensuring we ran back-to-back comparison tests yesterday to aid our decisions. I want to thank the team in the garage who stayed late to add the updates to Fernando's car. Suzuka rewards a strong car, so we will see what tomorrow brings. We want to finish with both cars in the points."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Suzuka here.