Lance Stroll, Racing Point, Hockenheimring, 2019

Stroll: We made wrong tyre call four times out of five

2019 German Grand Prix

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Lance Stroll says his early call to fit slick tyres at the end of the German Grand Prix was the only pit call that went right for him in the race.

The Racing Point driver was the first to gamble on slick tyres with 20 laps to go as the track was drying. “I actually said it, at that stage,” he said. “We were last, it was a team decision, but I said ‘it’s good enough for slicks’ and it was.”

As Stroll began setting rapid sector times the rest of the drivers copied him. But he said the race hadn’t gone well for him up to that point.

“We got it wrong four out of the five times,” said Stroll. “We went on slicks and then it started raining. And then I spun twice in one lap so I was limping back to the pit lane, we fitted the inters. Then it started to dry up so we fit another set of inters because we were destroying those inters, and then we fitted the slicks at the end.

“So I’ll have to re-watch the race and figure it all out.”

Stroll briefly hit the front of the field after his final pit stop. He admitted a podium finish would have been possible if he hadn’t had another spin.

“They told me I was P1 and I was still kind of exploring the grip. But I was on my tyres for two laps at that stage and the other guys came out of the pits with warmer tyres and I was still losing temperature.

“It was quite wet so I was gaining grip and they came out with fresh tyres and initially I didn’t have very good pace on the slicks but then once everyone settled in I had quite good pace and we were in the hunt for a podium.

“Unfortunately it slipped away from us today. I made an error in turn eight on my second or third lap on slicks and that allowed [Daniil] Kvyat to overtake me. If only that wouldn’t have happened we had the podium today. But it’s still a great result, P4.”

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14 comments on “Stroll: We made wrong tyre call four times out of five”

  1. “I actually said it, at that stage,” he said. “We were last, it was a team decision, but I said ‘it’s good enough for slicks’ and it was.”

    I guess this is the big advantage of hanging around at the back of the field…;-)

  2. Didn’t Stroll unlap himself and pit under the safety car?

    Does F1 allow all of the cars to unlap themselves under a safety car?

    1. yes, under SC they are allowed to unlap themselves

      1. Indycar does the same.

        I completely disagree with the rule. Why should the guys that are lapped be gifted that much time? It was controversial in Nascar when they allowed the first car a lap down to unlap themselves under the safety car. In Indy and F1, they all get to do it.

        1. they came up with it in order no to impact battle for position, which in fairness are much more interesting that seeing cars lapping others.

          1. Not to difficult. Send the lapped cars to the rear.

          2. what happens if you make a car that was lapped by the leaders drop to the rear and he gets lapped by the whole field in the process? He could have been fighting for position and all of a sudden is a lap down

          3. This is for the last reply.

            To bad. Why should lead lap cars be punished for staying on the lead lap?

          4. but they aren’t, and surely if they are on the lead lap is just a detail, sooner or later they will be lapped

            personally I don’t see any problem with the current system, apart from a small delay on the re-starts, by as you might have noticed after they unlap themselves, most times the SC does not allow them to fully recover to the back of the grid.

  3. Stroll finished P4, but boy he had an awful race didn’t he?

    1. He had an awful start and middle of the race, but a brilliant end. And, as it it, he was the 4th driver to complete the 64 laps of racing so I’d call it a great race in the end.

      1. a great result sure, a great race I think he was far from one

  4. No Lance, putting you in the car, to begin with, is what’s gone wrong here.

  5. What a pit-stop!

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