Lance Stroll had a Monaco to forget. While the Canadian did a good job in qualifying to beat Fernando Alonso once again, a hit of the barrier and a puncture ruined any chance of scoring a point, as he finished P14.
He was poised to finish as the highesr driver of the Aston Martins with P11 or something slightly better, especially since his teammate Fernando Alonso gave Stroll enough of a gap to pit for fresh tires and rejoin ahead so he could chase Alpine’s Pierre Gasly on much fresher rubber for P10.
Stroll reflected on his day, saying that it was positive until the puncture, especially with the help of Alonso to build a gap to pit and not lose places. However, he claimed that regardless of the puncture, passing Gasly would have been difficult through the narrow streets of Monte Carlo.
The Canadian did manage to overtake Sargeant and Guanyu later on following his second stop.
“We did what we could with working with both cars. Fernando was very kind to fill a bit of a gap and give me a pit window.
“And then, yeah, just unfortunate with the puncture. Maybe if we got behind Gasly, we could have got a point, but I think it would have been really difficult to pass him.”
While there was a good gap between the top five and bottom five teams early in the season, there is one team that seems to be climbing up the order: RB F1.
As Yuki Tsunoda is consistently scoring points, it looks like they have become more of a threat to Aston Martin than they would like, and Stroll admitted that they have been faster at the last few events. Qualifying in particular backs that up.
“They seem to be a bit quicker than us right now in the last few races, for sure. We definitely have some work to do.”
Stroll also did not mince words when talking about the narrow Monaco circuit.
With the circuit being a public road, it is normally a parade rather than a race.
Stroll thinks plenty of changes are required to get some proper racing, especially since two cars can barely go side-by-side on the circuit in most places due to the cars getting wider and heavier in recent years.
“They really need to do something with the track, for everyone on Sunday. I mean, qualifying is fun. You know, FP1, two, three is fun when you’re pushing and you’re driving.
“But these races here are just, like, horrendous. And the cars are only getting bigger and wider. So, they really need to do something.
“It is what it is. I didn’t expect anything different coming into today. That’s just Monaco.
“Here you need a 10-second delta to overtake, not a 2-second delta.”
Stroll and Alonso had a good start to the weekend, as both the cars were in the top 7 during FP1 and FP2. However, things started to fall away already during final practice, and it got even worse come qualifying.
The 2020 Turkish GP polesitter discussed how tyre selection and fuel loads played a role in them seeming to be stronger than they were in reality.
“I mean everyone’s on different fuel loads and tyres and stuff early in the weekend. I think a lot of guys put used soft tyres on and mediums because they thought it was going to rain on Friday to save a set for Saturday.
“So, I think in FP3, we saw a bit of a picture of where we were.”
Regarding the performance of the AMR24 versus the AMR23, Stroll did not mince his words about this year’s car.
“Tough to see where it’s stronger.”
