Fernando Alonso hails "best Friday" as Aston Martin impresses in the Spaniard's hands

Fernando Alonso hailed the best Friday Aston Martin has had in a while as the Spaniard put together an impressive run in both FP1 and FP2. The green-liveried team has been on an impressive run since they brought the upgrade in Imola.

Since then, the car has shown improved performance, especially on tracks with higher downforce. The race in Hungary was one of those events where Fernando Alonso would secure an impressive result for the team.

This weekend in Singapore, once again, the track demands lean more towards a high downforce setup, and Aston Martin appears to be adjusting to it quite impressively. From FP1 onwards, Fernando Alonso was right on the pace with the frontrunners and looked quite competitive on all compounds of tires.

Talking to F1TV afterwards, the Spaniard admitted that there were certainly positives to be taken from the day but cautioned that the team had to wait until Saturday to see how things fall into place. He said,

“It seems a little bit better than the previous Grand Prix. Let’s try to fine-tune the set-up; it’s still not in a happy place, especially on the front axle, still a little bit too much understeer. It’s something to work on tonight. I think since the first lap in FP1 we were in a comfortable place, and we were able to find the limits quite quickly."

He added,

“In FP2 obviously the red flags didn’t help to see the full picture, so I don’t know the top teams if they put the lap together or not, but let’s see if we can be in Q3 tomorrow and [score] points on Sunday. I think both sessions in the top four, probably it’s the best Friday so far. But as I said, sometimes on Friday we run with different programmes than the others, or different fuel."

Fernando Alonso's teammate echoes the Spaniard's positive sentiments about the day

Fernando Alonso's teammate, Lance Stroll, echoed the Spaniard's sentiments about the car, as the Canadian also felt that the Aston Martin was working well around Singapore. Talking about how the day went, Stroll felt that the team was able to improve the car a lot throughout the day, as he said,

“Some good laps today. We learnt a lot. I think we improved the car from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, so that was good. It was very different [in FP2], for sure. With the temperature dropping, the sun coming down, it was a very different track. But I had a good feeling in the car, we were competitive in that session, so we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

Fernando Alonso, on his part, has won in Singapore multiple times, with wins coming in 2008 and 2010. The Spaniard would be hoping for a strong result even though the exact position of the Aston Martin on the current pecking order is hard to predict.