Aston Martin/Mercedes had a rough qualifying period Saturday at the Miami International Autodrome, and its team members are trying to remain positive ahead of the Miami Grand Prix Sunday.

At Miami Gardens, Fla. on Saturday, Fernando Alonso, who suffered the worst qualifying performance of his year by falling into the P15 slot in the grid, didn’t mince words in calling his performance “poor,” but also tried to find a silver lining.

“So yeah, let’s take it, let’s learn some things tomorrow in the race and we’ll see,” Alonso said.

Alonso and teammate Lance Stroll made contact during a multi-car collision on Lap 1 of the Sprint, and neither racer could advance past Q2 during qualifying. Alonso pointed to changes made to his car following the Sprint as not proving beneficial, ultimately.

“I could not improve that much,” Alonso said. “We made some set-up changes also from the session this morning to now — looking at the times, I would say that didn’t work as expected. But, yeah, this is a Sprint weekend and it’s tough.”

Stroll was in similar spirits about a potential rally to salvage some points on Sunday.

“It looks like we weren’t super competitive today, so we’ve got to look into it,” Stroll said. “Hopefully we can try and score some points tomorrow.”

Stroll will start at 11th, while Alonso will do his best to factor in at 15.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult to score points in my case,” Alonso acknowledged.

Two-time defending Miami Grand Prix winner and reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen captured the pole, his seventh straight, but his first pole in Miami.

The Red Bull Racing driver finished with a 0.141-second edge over Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc (1:27.382), with his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. in third (1:27.455).

–Field Level Media