Alonso: We just don’t have spare training tires

Fernando Alonso clearly doesn’t like the new approach to qualifying that Pirelli has taken at Monza for the second time this season, as it doesn’t add to the normal preparation for the weekend’s main events. But his Aston Martin team-mate has not been lucky at all: Lance Stroll has yet to complete a single lap and will have to rely on information gathered by Alonso and Felipe Drugovic, the team’s reserve driver.

Fernando Alonso (8th): “Training went well, it’s always a pleasure to be back at Monza, where we’re taking advantage of the unique low downforce settings that allow for a very high top speed.

When you drive a Formula 1 car in Monza, you really feel the adrenaline rushing through the roof! Overall, I’m happy to be back, although it’s clear we haven’t been able to do as many laps due to Lance’s problems.

But I haven’t been very active on the track either: with this qualifying format you don’t do many laps – we simply don’t have extra tires to train. That is why we apologize to the fans who hardly see any cars on the track on Friday.

As I said, we don’t have any extra tires to really test the car, but everything is on an equal footing. That’s why we have to speculate when trying to make predictions for tomorrow’s qualifying.

But I think the results will be very compact. There are only six corners in Monza, so all cars from 6th to 16th position will be within two or three tenths. That is why we have to make sure that we are at the top of this group.”

Lance walk (without time): “Of course the team was able to get some information about the behavior of the car on this track, so we’ll see what we can do in preparation for tomorrow. But since I didn’t do a single lap, I don’t know for what results I will be able to fight. Let’s see…”

Felipe Drugovich (18th in first practice): “Today I had a lot of fun flying the AMR23 – the car is just fantastic! I expected the minimum downforce settings to affect stability a bit, but I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent handling and was able to attack with confidence almost immediately.

As tomorrow’s qualifying requires an alternative approach to using rubber, I was given one set of Medium tires for the whole session, but we were able to fully complete the work plan on track.

I spent a lot of time in the simulator helping the team fine-tune the car, so getting back behind the wheel gave me a good idea of ​​how the AMR23 upgrade is progressing. It will also help improve the correlation between the simulator and the real circuit.

I am very grateful to the team for the opportunity today and for the way they helped me during the session. It was a pleasure to work with everyone on track again.”