Lance Stroll experienced a challenging weekend at Suzuka, Japan, culminating in a 12th-place finish, while his teammate Fernando Alonso secured a commendable sixth position. However, amidst the struggles, one radio message from Stroll during the race caught attention, prompting revelations about the underlying issue.
Stroll expressed his dissapointment over the team radio, stating, “It is unbelievable how bad our speed is on the straight,” further adding, “it’s like a different category,” his voice exhibiting a hint of frustration.
He could not find a way past Yuki Tsunoda before pitting for softs to try and create tyre offset to catch and pass him. But it did not work out and Stroll was overtaken by Hülkenberg on the last lap.
The Canadian driver attributed the radio message to a discrepancy in the rear wing specification of his car, which differed from Alonso’s configuration. All his moves had to be done in the esses.
“It was really tough with the straight-line speed, we just had the wrong rear wing on the car,” Stroll explained post-race.
Throughout the race weekend, Stroll had struggles with the AMR24’s performance, encountering challenges during qualifying and the race itself. He was in the bottom 5 in FP1 and FP3 — and that continued into qualifying with a Q1 exit.
Reflecting on the overall performance, he remarked, “With qualifying and the race, it was one of those weekends to forget.”
Stroll’s struggles contrasted with his previous strong performance in Australia, where he outpaced Alonso in qualifying and drove a solid race to take P6 following his teammate’s penalty. However, the Suzuka circuit presented formidable obstacles for the Canadian, and he was floundering in the second half of the field.
Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack defended Stroll, attributing the lack of straight-line speed to factors such as tire wear and traction variations. Krack said, “What you see across the field is that there are very small differences in terms of straight-line performance. But what you have is that at different times of the race, there are different tyre conditions, and the acceleration out of the corners is a different one.”
The team principal further added,“If you look at the power-limited data, you see that all the cars are very, very similar. But the tyre conditions at various times of the race, you are offset by 10-12-15 laps of tyres, and then you accelerate completely differently.”
Addressing concerns regarding Stroll’s complaint, Krack clarified that the issue stemmed not from the car lacking top speed due to drag or engine power but rather from the illusion created by competitors around him benefiting from superior tyre traction, enabling quicker acceleration out of corners and reaching higher speeds sooner.
