Alonso: We hoped the safety car would come out

Lance Stroll finished ninth at Imola, earning two points for Aston Martin. His teammate Fernando Alonso started from the pit lane, experimented with settings and tires during the race and returned to the pits one lap before the finish.

Lance walk (9th): “It’s nice to leave Imola with some points. We decided to extend the first stint on Medium in the hope that the safety car would come out, but it never did, forcing us to regain positions on track.

Thanks to taking care of the tires in the first half of the race, the new Hard set gave me a lead closer to the finish and I was able to overtake Nico Hulkenberg and Yuki Tsunoda.

The weekend proved difficult. We know that our competitiveness is not yet where we want it to be, so the team will continue to work as hard as possible to achieve the speed increase we need.”

Fernando Alonso (19th): “A difficult day and a difficult weekend for us. I started from the pit lane and we changed a few things in the car’s settings. This made it possible to collect a lot of information that will have to be analyzed in the coming days.

I decided to start on soft tires and we hoped for a safety car that could change things. When it became clear that nothing was wrong, we started experimenting with different tire compounds. Essentially they used the race as a test.

Now we have to regroup and show our best form in Monaco.”