Fernando Alonso will have Aston Martin’s AMR23 all to himself during tomorrow’s second day of pre-season testing, the team has confirmed.
Alonso’s team mate, Lance Stroll, is missing the only pre-season test in Bahrain after injuring his hand after a cycling accident while training for the new season. Aston Martin reserve driver, Felipe Drugovich, participated in the early session in the car before Alonso took over for the evening session.
Aston Martin have announced Alonso will run in both of tomorrow’s sessions and will decide how they will allocate their final day’s running on Saturday at a later point.
Earlier today, team principal Mike Krack said Aston Martin will make any decision as to whether they need to call on Drugovich or their other reserve driver Stoffel Vandoorne to replace Stroll during next weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix “in time”.
“He was training, trying to improve or to work on his fitness last week, so he was cycling and he had a small incident and hurt himself,” Krack explained. “For precautionary reasons, we decided it’s better to wait a little bit and be ready next week.
Asked if he would expand on the extent of Stroll’s injuries, Krack declined for the sake of his driver’s privacy.
“This is personal thing,” said Krack. “He’s injured on the hand, on the wrist, but I don’t want to go into detail because this is also his privacy.”
Aston Martin completed 100 laps over the course of the day. Drugovich covered the fewest of any driver with 40 after suffering an electrical problem early in the afternoon session. Alonso managed more than a race distance’s worth with 60 laps in the car, and set the second-quickest time behind Max Verstappen.
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