Alonso: We could fight for the first three positions

Fernando Alonso believes he could potentially battle for front row positions if not pole position during qualifying in Melbourne, but was let down by a car in a decisive attempt.

Fernando Alonso (10th): “The hydraulic system failed, causing the gears to stop shifting, the power steering and everything else stopped working. Although I think we could compete for the first three positions today, during my attempt in the qualifying final I felt that the car is very fast.

We have waited a long time for such an opportunity, but in all three first stages of the season we are very unlucky. It’s a shame because this weekend could well be the most successful in many years, so now I’m upset.

I’m not surprised we were able to get so close to the leaders as the whole team continues to work hard. Every weekend the car gets better, that’s positive. But now we have to address the root of today’s problems and I hope we can earn points tomorrow.

Esteban Ocon (8th) “The result left a bitter aftertaste. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to fully exploit the machine’s potential today. If you look at the big picture, the A522 had speed, both cars made it to the qualifying final, but we couldn’t put it all together.

In the morning practice it turned out that the car was lacking a bit of pace and we tried to change the settings, but I was already less comfortable behind the wheel than yesterday. This is somewhat frustrating, although in a situation where the day is average, the 8th result can be considered more or less normal.

But I think tomorrow everything will be a little better, we will still fight, but now we have to admit that our business is developing this way. In the race we have to compete with McLaren, but I also hope to compete with the Mercedes racers, and if we can do it it will be good. But we’ll see.”

Otmar Safnauer, Team Principal: “In today’s qualifying we missed a good opportunity because we could have shown a very good result. On a positive note, both cars went into the final session for the second time in a row.

Potentially, our riders could compete well for places in the top five, but we ended up finishing in 8th and 10th position. However, we know that even if you start from here, you can still have a good race. On Friday our pace was encouraging so we will try to earn points.

Of course Fernando was fast today, but now we are going to investigate the causes that led to the accident. We were just unlucky, because the speed of the car allowed us to fight for higher positions.”