Aston Martin began the 2024 season strongly, earning enough points in the early rounds to secure fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship, as Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso could fight for decent spots.
They maintained their position in P5 throughout the season despite being out-developed and outpaced by competitors such as Haas and Alpine.
Lack of highlights from the 2024 campaign
With car development going in the wrong direction, Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll finds it challenging to identify a season highlight.
“I don’t know.
“Where’s my best result? I don’t even know. You tell me where my best result was, and I’ll tell you that.
“We’ve just had like P7s, P8s and stuff.”
Looking back at the entire season, the 26-year-old identifies the British GP and Canadian GP as the highlights.
He finished P7 in both races, although Stroll’s best result of 2024 came at Albert Park with a P6 finish. Teammate Fernando Alonso was handed a post-race time penalty after the Spaniard’s games with George Russell.
“I liked driving the car in […] where was it, Silverstone?
“Yeah, and Canada. We had an exciting race and had a good result. So yeah, off the top of my head, maybe those ones.”
A quiet end to the season
The Abu Dhabi GP started well enough for Stroll, who started from P13 on the grid and found himself in P9 after the opening lap.
However, with Hamilton, Piastri, and Verstappen charging through the field, the 26-year-old soon found himself outside the points.
Stroll finished the Abu Dhabi GP in P12 but was later demoted to P14 after receiving a 5-second time penalty for track limit violations.
Thus, the Aston driver finished the season P13 in the Drivers’ Standings.
“I had a good start to the race and made up four positions on the opening lap, but the car didn’t have the performance to fight for much more,” he said.
“After the pit stops, we just didn’t have the pace to climb all the way back through the traffic into the points, but we made a few positions back passing Doohan and Tsunoda.”
A season to forget
Looking back at the season, Stroll notes that the result was not what the team was looking for at the start of the campaign.
“Not what we were all hoping for, result-wise, wanting. Yeah, but now the focus is on next year.”
On his own personal performance where he was comfortably bested by Fernando Alonso once again, Stroll had this to say:
“Always things to work on, for sure. So yeah, going to be pushing to be better next year.”
Hopes for the future
Next year will mark the arrival of Adrian Newey at Aston Martin, and the team hopes to see a performance boost following the addition.
“That’s definitely the hope, for sure. Yeah, that’s what we’re all hoping for.”
Aston Martin will be looking to return to its performance in 2023, when it was, at times, the second or third fastest car.
Lance Stroll believes the team’s 2023 stats are ambitious given its current position, but he would consider a performance improvement compared to this year a success for Aston Martin.
“I think it’s going to be a challenge. We’re pushing as hard as we can, but we have a lot of work to do. So, where we were at the beginning of last year, probably difficult.
“But if we can be a step more competitive than we are this year, that would already be, I think, very good.”
No interest in Le Mans
Aston Martin will contest in WEC with the Valkyrie in 2025. When asked whether he had any interest in participating in the series, particularly LeMans, Stroll replied with a resounding “no”.
