According to Alonso, these are Aston Martin's weaknesses in Australia

Fernando Alonso had a difficult qualifying session. The Spaniard did not get further up the grid than P10, which means he will start tomorrow behind teammate Lance Stroll. After qualifying, the two-time world champion reacts to his session.

"Generally, I think we felt a little bit less competitive this weekend," the Spaniard began. "FP1, FP2, FP3 was not as fast as Jeddah, for example. We were P1 in FP2 and P2 in FP3 in Jeddah and it was not the case here."

When Alonso was asked about the car's weakness on the Melbourne circuit, the Aston Martin driver said: "More grip, but the graining. Too much sliding. A lot of safety cars. It’s not going to be an easy race for the tyres. Let's see if we can manage the tyres. We start both cars in the top ten we want to finish in the points."

Last year, Alonso was allowed to start fourth at the race in Melbourne. That race went crazy. Towards the end, the Aston Martin driver seemed to lose a podium after a big crash, which resulted from a restart. He eventually got his third spot after the grid was restored on the restart.

Alonso dreamed of pole position in qualifying

So last year, the Aston Martin was more competitive. Yet Alonso still had a dream, he told opposite Viaplay: "We're still fighting and still dreaming for another pole position 21 years later. We are not in that position yet, but I'm still enjoying these kind of laps. When you put new tyres, low fuel in the cars, you really feel the power of the aerodynamics on an F1 car."