Lance Stroll is having a nightmare weekend in Qatar. He has been blown away by teammate Fernando Alonso throughout the event so far and found himself in hot water for some unacceptable actions afterwards.
In qualifying on Friday, he was 1.1s slower than the Spaniard as the Canadian got knocked out in Q1. Footage showed the 24-year-old pushing his performance coach Henry Howe in the garage after Howe had pointed to him he needed to go and get weighed.
Photo credit: Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team
When it was put to him that the incident blew up on social media, Stroll didn’t seem to particularly care.
“I am not looking at social media — I am in the car driving this weekend.”
A follow-up question on the incident was delivered by the same journalist who said they would face action if they had done such a thing to a colleague. Stroll responded saying they go through the highs and lows together.
“We’re good. He’s a bro. We go through the frustration together, and we ride together. We’re cool.”
As for how he’ll deal with tough situations in the future, the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix polesitter doesn’t plan on changing anything in regards to his conduct .
“I f***ing hate having a bad day. I am not gonna change.”
Bad qualifying sessions have been the norm recently for Stroll, but it was Friday that proved to be a tipping point as he let things get to him. He believes the whole team is frustrated with how things have fallen away since Canada.
“No [a bad qualifying is not a new thing], but we’re in a rut. It’s not getting better.
“I think frustration is in the whole group right now. We want to do better, we want to get better. But it’s just a struggle right now.”
If you include sprint shootout qualifying in Qatar, Stroll has failed to make it out of Q1 in five consecutive sessions.
Across the last seven race weekends and the two sprint Saturdays at Spa and Qatar, the Canadian has scored just three points. It means he’s clinging on to a top 10 spot in the standings, one point ahead of Pierre Gasly.
Stroll went into detail about how the feeling he had in the car earlier in the season has completely disappeared since Austria.
“[I am having] high levels of understeer, snap levels of oversteer and a lack of grip. I just feel like I can’t really lean on the car and drive it with confidence without dealing with snaps and understeer.
“It’s just a balance that I really don’t particularly enjoy driving.”
On Saturday in Qatar, he was 0.9s off Alonso in SQ1 as he got knocked out. In the race, he could only manage P15 thanks to a post-sprint penalty for exceeding track limits too many times.
