Lance and Sebastian will line up 17th and 20th respectively for Saturday’s Sprint after a challenging qualifying session in Austria.
In the sole practice session before qualifying, the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One™ Team drivers completed 55 laps between them.
Qualifying proved to be difficult but both drivers are looking to make up positions in the Sprint race.
Lance
Lance started FP1 on the Medium tyre and had completed a best lap of 1.08.775 before a red flag ended his five-lap run.
When the running resumed, Lance returned to the circuit with a new set of Medium tyres and improved his time to 1.08.097 before a second stoppage.
Running the Soft tyres once the session resumed, Lance improved to a 1.07.431 to end up 11th having completed 26 laps overall.
Austrian GP
At a shade under 70 seconds, the Red Bull Ring is the quickest lap on the Formula 1 calendar. But its speed belies the challenge: the track is packed with tricky corners, unforgiving run-offs and three powerful DRS zones.
Lance did two runs on Soft tyres during Q1, and his first set yielded a best lap of 1.07.140.
He returned to the track on his second set of tyres and, despite improving to a 1.06.847 late in the session, he finished in 17th.
"It is always a challenge here with the track limits. But despite that, we did not quite have the pace to make it through into Q2 today.
"Obviously, we are going to try and recover some places in the Sprint tomorrow, and our pace is looking okay after Free Practice earlier, so there is still plenty to play for this weekend."
Sebastian
Sebastian spent much of the sole practice session of the day running the Medium tyre, putting in a 1.08.360 early on before a red flag brought an interruption to the stint.
After the stoppage, he took to the track on a new set of Medium tyres, improving to a 1.07.964 before a second red flag – this time for debris – would halt the running briefly.
Returning on Soft tyres for the final part of the session, Sebastian put in a time of 1.07.476 to end up 13th after 29 laps.
Sebastian took to the track early in Q1 and put in a best time of 1.07.480 on his first run on Soft tyres.
He returned to the track on his second set of Soft tyres and improved to a 1.07.083. He would improve further, but his time was deleted due to exceeding track limits at Turn One and he will line up 20th.
"It was a shame to get my lap-time deleted for crossing track limits. I had actually lost a little time at Turn One anyway – so it was effectively a double penalty.
"Still, we did not have the pace today to get through into the next part of qualifying – but there are plenty of opportunities in tomorrow's Sprint Race and we will hopefully start in a better position for Sunday's Grand Prix."
Mike Krack, Team Principal, added:
"We pushed hard in qualifying today, but there was no more time to find in the car. Nevertheless, it is still only Friday – we have the Sprint tomorrow and we have proved recently that we can race strongly.
"There is still plenty to play for, and both Lance and Sebastian will be pushing hard to maximise every opportunity ahead of Sunday."
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