Last year’s Australian Grand Prix was a bit of a dud for Aston Martin. Lance Stroll comprimised himself after coming together with fellow-Canadian Nicholas Latifi in qualifying, while Sebastian Vettel had a horrendous return to racing after missing two races due to Covid. The weekend yielded no points, but according to Stroll the team is living in the present rather than looking back.
“We’re enjoying the present and not thinking about the past,” he said.
“We were in a really tough place a year ago. The car just wasn’t competitive. That’s just not fun for anyone.
“This year it’s a different story and definitely looking forward to the weekend.”
And it’s no surprise Stroll is looking forward to the weekend. The car is performing fine and his recovery from two broken wrists is going well.
“We were good in Bahrain. And then, at a very different kind of track in Jeddah, we were good again. But we’re very competitive again, so I don’t see why there’s no reason we should be able to do it again this weekend.”
He added that “a good car gives you more confidence driving. You can push it harder. It’s more enjoyable.”, and he praised his engineers and mechanics for delivering the goods for him to drive better:
“I think just the team’s done a really good job at building [the car]. We improved a lot of aspects compared to the car from last year. It’s a lot more efficient. There’s a lot more downforce and quality downforce. Yeah, I think it’s just all those things coming together and making it a really good car.”
Last outing in Saudi-Arabia he failed to make it to the finish, which he felt was unfair, but that didn’t distract him from working on his recovery the past two weeks. On his occupation during those two weeks he said:
“I was just training and still working on my wrists and recovering. [They’re] still not 100% but definitely get better.”
“I still have those fractures. They’re not done yet. Bones don’t heal in a few weeks, but I’m definitely feeling much better.”
