Stroll to start Australian Grand Prix at the back

Formula 1 driver Lance Stroll will start Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix from the back of the grid after not taking part in Saturday’s qualifying.

It follows Stroll not participating in Free Practice 3 earlier in the day due to an engine problem. In an Instagram post, Aston Martin said there was “not enough time to rebuild the car” after the issues in the morning.

Speaking to journalists in the media pen at Albert Park, the Jewish driver said he still hopes to do some racing on Sunday.

“I heard we had some issues this morning, and it was going to be hard to do any laps today. So that’s what was expected before even FP3,” Stroll said. “[I’ll] Try and get out tomorrow, I hope, and at least do a few laps in the race and learn a thing or two.”

Asked if there were any concerns about whether he could race on Sunday, Stroll was blunt. “There’s concerns. We did three laps this weekend, so there’s concerns,” he said.

Stroll said he didn’t know all the details of what went wrong on Saturday. “I think it was some stuff that compounded. There was one issue that led into another issue. I don’t know all the details,” he said.

Aston Martin will have to request special permission from Formula 1 stewards for Stroll to even get on the track. Under the league’s “107 per cent rule”, drivers usually need to post a time within 107 per cent of the fastest qualifying time in order to race.

Teammate Fernando Alonso did get on track on Saturday afternoon, finishing 17th after narrowly missing out on advancing to the second qualifying period.

“Maybe that’s enough to ignite a little bit of motivation in everyone in the garage, and that’s probably part of our job now as drivers — to keep the morale of the team high in difficult moments,” he said. “The mechanics, they’ve been working flat out and changing power units day and night, the last six weeks.

“Even on the other side of the garage, with Lance being so unlucky in FP3 and qualifying with zero laps, when you go on track and you are in the mix with a few cars, it’s a little bit better than being dead last as we were yesterday.”

Looking ahead to Sunday’s race, Alonso said the team would need to be flexible given their shortage of parts. “We are short on parts, so there is no secrets on that, and China is next week,” he said.

“Hopefully we can do as many laps as possible. Hopefully we can do nearly the whole race, but at the first sign that there is something potentially wrong, we cannot risk running until we make some big damage, then we compromise next week. So we will have to be very flexible.”

It was an eventful qualifying session with four-time drivers champion Max Verstappen crashing his Red Bull into the wall after his rear axle locked up.

“I just hit the pedal and the whole rear axle just completely locked, which is especially with these Formula 1 cars, very weird. I mean, I’ve never experienced that in my whole life,” Verstappen said.

George Russell of Mercedes qualified at the front of the grid, with his teammate Kimi Antonelli – who had his own crash earlier in Free Practice 3 – in second, and Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar in third place.

Australia’s Oscar Piastri qualified fifth for his home Grand Prix.