A race and perhaps weekend to forget for Lance Stroll in the principality of Monaco this year. Qualifying 14th while your teammate sticks it on the front row is bound to be frustrating, even if your teammate is an on form Fernando Alonso and some floor damage affected your pace. Stroll also escaped a penalty for missing the weigh bridge during qualifying which would have further added to the pain.
The green AMR23 with the number 18 on the nose started far out of position for Sunday’s race and perhaps the frustration led to some manoeuvres that were a tad ill judged on the opening lap that the young Canadian referred to as “busy, eventful” with “lots of crashing”, picking up some damage at the hairpin and relegating himself further down the order before picking up brake issues later in the race which were compounded by the wet conditions.
The 24-year-old sounded like he was keen to wipe the memory of this race away when speaking after the race:
“Yeah, just not a good day from start to finish really. Bad race. I had some issues with the car and couldn’t slow down and hit the wall like, 5 times. It was pretty horrible. I started feeling the car struggling to slow down before the rain then when it started to rain I just couldn’t slow down the car.”
This struggle to get the car stopped in time on the greasy street circuit saw him make contact numerous times with the barriers before retiring from the race with his AMR23 looking a bit worse for wear. Looking to put the last weekend in the past and get some good points in Catalunya more deserving of the package underneath him, Stroll said:
“I’ll be aiming for a points finish at Barcelona next weekend. I’m already looking forward to Spain.”
Team Principal Mike Krack, no doubt buoyed by the second place of Alonso, was not too negative when questioned about the son of the team owner:
“Lance had a difficult race. It’s so difficult if you have a fast car and you’re stuck in traffic. You see how much quicker you are than everybody. And we have to tell him, be patient, be patient, be patient. When he had the wets fitted, it was the first time he had free air. Then he caught out at turn 6 where it was raining quite a lot.
These things happen in a race like that when you try to maximise the opportunities you have. But I think it’s not a problem. This was the only thing that he could do at the time.”
In a car that is clearly the second quickest on the grid, Lance Stroll needs to pick up the pace or Aston Martin will soon slip behind a struggling Mercedes (who have probably the fourth fastest car) in the constructors standings as they are now just a point ahead of their engine supplier.
