Photo: Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team
After missing last week’s testing due to an injury, Lance Stroll was back behind the wheel of his Aston Martin this weekend, albeit he was not entirely okay.
Although the Canadian driver did not go into detail about his wrists injury, after the race he commented on the incident on Sky Sports F1:
“A terrible time to crash on a bicycle and doctors were telling me, ‘Maybe Australia, maybe Baku [to return to F1]’.
“The light at the end of the tunnel was very hard to see but I had an incredible medical team that helped me along the way,” Stroll explained.
“My osteopath was with me 10 hours a day; my surgeon Dr [Xavier] Mir, without him, I wouldn’t be here, it would be impossible to be driving.
“There’s a list of people I could name and without them I wouldn’t be here [racing].”
Despite the pain and not having tested the car during the pre-season testing, Stroll managed to bring home a fantastic sixth place, demonstrating an incredible strength and confirming what had emerged from the tests, which is that the team has improved considerably compared to last year, as also shown by Alonso’s brilliant third place.
A result for which both drivers can be really happy and can breathe a sigh of relief, especially after the contact that saw them involved in the first lap.
“It was really terrible timing honestly,” Stroll said referring to it.
“I was going on the inside of Russell, trying to stay in front of him, braked late, Fernando went for the cutback on Lewis, really stopped the car in the middle of Turn 4 and we just came together.
“Really horrible timing for all those things to happen with the great car we had today, but very fortunately we both saved it and went onto have a good race.”
“It’s just been an insane journey. The last two weeks have been the most insane two weeks of my life.”
