The starting grid of the Brazilian Grand Prix sprint race has been changed just over an hour from lights out, with three drivers set to begin from the pit lane.

For changing parts of their cars after Friday’s qualifying session, the Aston Martin duo of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, in addition to Zhou Guanyu of Sauber will all start from the pits.

Changes to the bodywork and suspension were made to Aston Martin cars under parc ferme conditions. Sauber also altered Zhou’s suspension, though all three drivers disappointed in the qualifying session and will feel that the drops were worth taking.

He confirmed that due to Aston Martin’s lack of pace, they were planning to treat the sprint race as if it were another practice session.

“We didn’t have the pace in qualifying,” said Alonso. “We made some changes also after FP1 that we knew that they were maybe detrimental to the pace of the car but we had to keep ourselves focussed for Sunday more than Saturday. [In] the sprint race, it’s unlikely that we’ll score points. For us it’s more a free practice.

“The sprint [race] for us really means nothing as there are only eight cars scoring points and even if you are eighth or seventh, you score one point or two.

“So the format doesn’t reward anything to be fast on Friday night and Saturday, for us it’s much more focussed on Sunday. Sunday [is what] we need to put all our beans on. So that’s the way we treat this weekends, a little bit useless until Saturday afternoon, and it’s the case for this one as well.”

Stroll echoed the sentiments of his team-mates: “We just didn’t have the pace to fight for more today.”