We ran trouble free in FP3 and seemed to unlock a lot of lap-time in Qualifying by just running more laps. There is potential in the car, so it’s clear we need more mileage. We are short on batteries and so can’t risk too much tomorrow, but hopefully we can do as many laps as possible. We face this challenge together and everybody in the team and in Honda have been working flat-out to improve this situation.

It’s been a tough weekend so far with a few issues that have kept us from getting the laps we needed. The team in the garage have been working really hard, but there just wasn’t enough time to get the car rebuilt before Qualifying. We’re not where we want to be at the moment, but we’ll keep pushing and keep working to improve.

Another very busy day in Melbourne as we continue to make progress with the AMR26 working with our technical partner, Honda. Fernando was able to run important laps in final practice, giving us valuable data and information heading into Qualifying. Fernando qualified in P17 – just missing out on Q2 – and it is clear there is lots of hard work ahead of us. Lance was unlucky today with an ICE issue keeping his car in the garage during practice. After those issues were resolved, there was not enough time to rebuild the car and take part in Qualifying. It is clear the AMR26 has the pace to compete, so we will discuss with the FIA tonight our options for running Lance tomorrow.

Today in our first qualifying with the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team, we took a step in the right direction with Fernando’s car. We were able to see the progression from Friday to now, thanks to the sustained hard work from both parties at the track and at our respective factories. We continue to see signs in our data that the battery vibrations have decreased since Bahrain testing, and we will continue to work further on this.

We unfortunately missed the third and final practice session this morning with Lance’s car. We had identified a power unit issue on the ICE side and, despite our best efforts, in conjunction with the team, the car wasn’t ready in time for qualifying.

All attention has now turned to preparing the power units for tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix, our first race event in this new and exciting era of F1.