FP3 went to plan for McLaren driver Fernando Alonso in Austin on Saturday morning. The Spanish driver completed two trouble-free runs in dry and sunny but blustery conditions, finishing the session in 13th place.
In qualifying, the field faced similarly windy conditions out on the circuit, but with track temperatures five degrees Celsius higher than in the morning session.
Q1 was a straightforward sessionโ Fernando opting for one run and comfortably passed through into Q2 in eighth place.
Q2 was also drama-free with Fernando slipping through into Q3 in ninth place.
Fernando started Q3 with a few tweaks to the set-up, and found good track position between cars to post the eighth-fastest time. After a second run and a slightly improved time to stay P8, he eventually finished the session in ninth on the timesheets.
โWe had some concerns before coming here about how competitive we could be, but we put the car on track and immediately performed quite well, being in the top 10 in every single session, and that was a nice surprise. We also brought some updates here and they are working fine,โ he said. โThe car felt great today. We had difficult conditions out there โ it was very hot and windy in qualifying and the grip level was lower than we expected. In those conditions our car performs extremely well, so our lap in Q2 was good and we were able to make it into Q3, with ninth place overall.โ
โTomorrow we'll start eighth, due to Verstappen's penalty, so I think it's a great chance to score points.ย We know we still have a deficit on the straights compared to other teams and we'll probably be a little exposed on the first lap because we're in a group, but after the first lap has settled I think we could open up the gap in the high-speed section and maybe defend a little bit better.ย We're definitely happy to race here in front of the US fans and I think they'll see a great race tomorrow!โ
