Szafnauer: Slightly disappointed we were not in Q3

Once again, the team that had a race-winning car last year and Mercedes power to boot, are well below-par with their current creation, on the day Stroll bettered Vettel for the third time out of four qualys this season.

Eighth in Q1 suggested the Canadian had a decent crack at Q1, but when the dust had settled he was only good for 11th, while teammate Vettel was 13th. This is the team that, as Racing Point, last year qualified fourth (Sergio Perez) and fifth (Stroll) at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

While Aston Martin's benchmark is not expected to be Mercedes but, at least compared to McLaren (fellow Merc customers) who have both cars at the sharper end all year so far, the Green cars should be doing a lot better.

Nevertheless, after qualy in Barcelona today, Szafnauer saw the bright side of a dismal performance by a team: “Lance and Sebastian both progressed smoothly through Q1, duly booking their places in Q2 as they did so.

"We were therefore slightly disappointed that we were not able to make it through to Q3 with either driver – we will analyse why that was now.

"Having said that, Lance will start the race from P11, and Seb from P13, which means that both of them will have a free choice of tyres to start on and both of them will have the advantage of a grid slot on the clean side of the track.

"They should both be in decent shape to race for points tomorrow," concluded Szafnauer somewhat optimistically.

Stroll missed out on Q2 by less than a hundredth of a second, and said of his afternoon: "It is a shame to have missed out on Q3 by such a tiny margin – just a few thousandths of a second.

"The positive is that by starting in P11, we have the flexibility to choose our start tyre and that could be crucial because I think tyre wear is going to be a very important factor in the race.

"It is not easy to overtake here, but if we can have a good start and gain places on the long run into Turn One, we can give ourselves a good platform for points on Sunday," added Stroll.

Vettel, who will start his 261st Grand Prix in the midpack where he seldom races without incident, the German summed up: “My final lap in Q2 was not entirely clean and, when the grid is so tight, those small things can make a real difference.

"I think we had a good chance of reaching Q3 today, but we just found ourselves at the wrong end of the midfield group. Because so many teams have a similar pace, it will not be an easy race, but we will hang in there, push hard, and see what we can do.

"You never know what can happen in a long race and, if we can look after the tyres and use our race pace, we can race for some points," concluded Vettel

Last year the Pink-Mercs finished the race fourth (Stroll) and fifth (Perez) in Spain, on the evidence of today, such a result in the race is probably a bridge too far for Lawrence Stroll's ambitious team.