01/09/2024
NEWS STORY
Fernando Alonso: "It was a difficult race today. We maximised the pace the best we could.
"I was able to push the car to its limits so I'm happy in that regard, but we did struggle with the relative pace of the car on track. We were in the points at the start of the race and were able to undercut [Alex] Albon thinking all teams would execute a two-stop race. It wasn't enough at the end to recover from that extra pit stop. We were only 0.2 seconds behind [Kevin] Magnussen and a second behind Albon so it is disappointing not to score any points today. We will keep pushing."
Lance Stroll: "Today's result was more or less what we expected. We haven't had the pace to challenge all weekend, and we knew there wasn't going to be much we could do from P17. We went into the race open to a one or two-stop strategy, but elected to stop twice when we saw the levels of tyre degradation. We then stopped for a third time at the end to try and take the fastest lap. Ultimately, we know we're missing the performance we need, and the focus remains on trying to bring that to the car."
Mike Krack, Team Principal: "Looking at the cars finishing around us, it is tempting to say we could have tried a one-stop strategy, but we know our car is hard on tyres and it was not an easy call today. We saw other teams facing the same difficult decision too. Fernando was in the fight for points all afternoon and until the very last lap - chasing down Albon and Magnussen - but we just ran out of laps in the end. We always knew it would be tough race and we need to find more performance to compete in this very tight midfield. We will keep our heads down to come back stronger in Baku."