We were very close to getting into Q2 and more or less maximised what we had. We have work to do to improve the driveability of the car and to recover more lap time moving forward. All in all, I think we have to be happy to be 1.3 seconds from the leader in Q1, when just a few races ago we were on average 4 seconds adrift of the top teams. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow and enjoy our last race here in Zandvoort.

We've struggled with similar issues today as we did yesterday. There are improvements we need to make with the driveability and balance of the car, and that's where our focus needs to be. Our race pace seems to be better than our Qualifying pace. In Qualifying, we need to be able to push more to really attack the lap. But we're making progress, we're working hard, and we'll keep pushing to make another step forward.

Despite the limited practice running of a Sprint event, the weekend so far has given us valuable track time to better understand the characteristics of our recent upgrades and the updated power unit. Both drivers are reporting significant steps forward with the chassis and aero performance. The key takeaway is that we need to improve the drivability, and doing so will help us find more performance. Our pace is much improved compared to a couple of races ago – but we know there’s more potential to unlock from this package.

Today we ran the Sprint race and qualifying without any reliability issues with the new spec engine. We have received similar feedback from both Aston Martin Aramco Formula One™ Team drivers after these sessions. Together, with our engineers’ assessments, and our work on the test bench at HRC Sakura overnight and after the Sprint race, we have seen some improvements to get a better control over the internal combustion engine (ICE) and to further improve the consistency of the combustion behaviour in qualifying. We need to ensure that the engine does what the driver needs at the right time. We have taken some steps today, but there is still more to be done to give the drivers the confidence they need. This is our primary focus for the short and medium term.