Lance Stroll has opened up about his alternative tyre strategy in Jeddah and Aston Martin’s objectives for the remainder of the season following his underwhelming P16 finish at the F1 Saudi Arabian GP.
After failing to make it out of Q1, Stroll started the race on the hard compound and made up a couple of positions. He extended his first stint longer than anyone on the grid and pitted at the end of lap 39.
The Aston Martin driver unfortunately didn’t have enough laps to pick off many of his rivals, and he crossed the line in sixteenth place.
With a well-timed Safety Car, alternative strategy was the only way to score points
Speaking in the print media zone afterwards, Lance Stroll touched on the longevity of his hard tyres at the F1 Saudi Arabian GP. He stated that the outcome wasn’t surprising, given the fairly low degradation that is observed at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
Noting that the alternative strategy wasn’t optimal, Stroll elaborated that a well-timed Safety Car would’ve allowed him to score a couple of points despite starting from the eighth row on the grid. At the same time, the Canadian added that the likelihood of scoring points following the conventional strategy was rather low anyway.
“No, it was a low deg race and yeah, it was far from the optimal strategy.
“But the only chance we had to pick up a point was hope for a Safety Car between lap 30 and lap 40 of the race. If we would’ve got one it would have been pretty sweet.
“I think we would’ve maybe been able to pick up a point or two but the alternative was you know, come out last. We knew that going in but it could have really gone the other way very easily.
“Otherwise we would’ve just finished 13th or whatever, 12th or 13th. And you don’t get anything for that. So, I think it was the only chance we had to really do something.”
Aston Martin focused on being more competitive with limited resources for the remainder of 2025
With regard to new regulations coming into effect next year and whether Aston Martin have set a target for the remaining race weekends in 2025, Lance Stroll responded after the F1 Saudi Arabian GP that they aren’t chasing any specific goals.
Nonetheless, the 26-year-old commented that the Silverstone-based team is intent on gaining as much performance as possible with the resources they have and boosting their relative competitiveness on track.
“I don’t think we have a target. I think we want to be a lot more competitive than we are at this point.
“It’s just about bringing as much performance as we can for the remainder of the year and see how much it brings. That’s all we can focus on, just bring what we can.”
