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Alonso not surprised by Q1 exit

Fernando Alonso has admitted that he did not expect to qualifying highly in Abu Dhabi – claiming that Renault are simply not fast enough this weekend.

It was a disappointing qualifying session all round for the Enstone-based team with Alonso only managing sixteenth and Romain Grosjean nineteenth after a number of spins.

Fernando Alonso – 16th: “It was disappointing for us to be out after Q1 as obviously I would have liked to qualify higher up the grid. Although the team have done their best to prepare the car, it just wasn’t quick enough to set a better time this afternoon. Tomorrow I will do all I can to get the best result possible in my last race with Renault.”

Romain Grosjean – 19th: “It was a difficult qualifying session today. We were missing performance but we still hoped to make it through to at least into Q2. We have done as much as we could, but sadly we were out in Q1. For tomorrow, it’s important not to make any mistakes and to finish as high as possible.”

Bob Bell, Team Principal: “Today’s qualifying session was disappointing. We haven’t been competitive this weekend so the qualifying result didn’t come as a great surprise to us, although we did think that we might get Fernando into Q2 so it was even more disappointing not to achieve that. However, we remain confident for the race and we will exploit any opportunity that might come our way. We will prepare ourselves as much as we can for the race and will see what it brings.”

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