Lance Stroll said qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix had been the worst session of his career after being eliminated in the first round.
The Aston Martin driver will start last on the grid. His team mate Fernando Alonso lapped eight-tenths of a second quicker than him in Q1 and went on to reach Q3 and qualify 10th.Stroll suffered a disrupted start to his weekend at Monza. Aston Martin reserve driver Felipe Drugovich took over his car during first practice as the team completed one of their two obligatory sessions for inexperienced drivers. Stroll returned to his car for second practice but came to a stop early on due to a loss of fuel pressure and was unable to complete any running.
That left him with only a single hour of practice on Saturday morning before qualifying began. However he wasn’t sure how badly the lost practice had affected his preparation.
“It was definitely tricky,” he told media including RaceFans. “I’m just not feeling any grip in the car.
“I’m not sure if it was no laps yesterday or just generally in the session, just not getting to grips with it, but we’ve got to look into what happened because worst session I think we’ve ever had.”
“I didn’t do a lot yesterday,” he added, “but I think it was still just there was something going on today in the car that didn’t make sense so we’ve got to look into it.”
As Formula 1 is using the Alternative Tyre Allocation this weekend, all drivers in Q1 had to run on the hard tyre compound. Stroll does not believe that contributed to his poor result.
“Everyone’s on the hard tyre,” he said. “I definitely felt like the soft was much better in FP3 than the hard just now.
“But it looked like everyone, even on the hard tyre right now, was able to go a lot quicker than the soft in FP3. So I’m not really sure.”
He is pessimistic about his chances of recovering in the race. “We’re going to have to look into it,” he said, “but it’s going to be a hard race from 20th.”
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Jere (@jerejj)
2nd September 2023, 16:12
Finishing dead last was unsurprising after such a limited preparation.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
2nd September 2023, 23:24
Is it really unsurprising that he couldn’t even beat at least one Hass? Really? That should be a bear minimum, even if he’s only had 1 hour of practice. He’s just not good enough.
goobz
2nd September 2023, 23:29
Haas***
Edvaldo
2nd September 2023, 16:21
another missed opportunity.
Dougracing (@dougracing)
2nd September 2023, 16:31
“worst session ever” so far
Prajwal (@prajwal)
2nd September 2023, 17:07
That was an unfortunate session there for Lance Stroll. Another missed opportunity, onto the next one!
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
2nd September 2023, 18:45
Don’t worry about it Lance.
It’s not like you actually have to be any good at your job is it?
You’re never going to go cold or hungry, no matter how incapable you are.
ben
2nd September 2023, 19:22
Shouldn’t be in the car in the first place. What a joke.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
2nd September 2023, 19:51
if being in the car “in the first place” means from when his dad bought the team – well lorance may well have refused to buy it if they didn’t give stroll a seat. This likely was the case back then and the team would not be where they are not if not for that. All that said, stroll is not doing good enough at the moment. his consistency is strange though as he sometimes does have good races and certainly shows that he has some clear strengths – at least in the past. One of them being racing in the wet and the other that he’s still clearly good at is his launch control and progress on lap one. He is probably the best on the grid in this area.
72defender (@72defender)
2nd September 2023, 20:34
AM is embarrassing themselves whether they want to admit it or not.
Mike Krack has bills to pay, so don’t ever expect him to be truthful about Lance.
Out scored 168-47 thus far, any other driver would have been replaced already.
When you never have to worry about your job, how hard would you really try.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd September 2023, 3:19
Yes, this score comparison is embarassing, no matter the driver doing that.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd September 2023, 3:20
I think ricciardo had something similar against norris, and he’s a lot more liked than stroll by fans, and he proved to be a capable race winner in the past, yet he got a lot of criticism, rightfully and lost his seat.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
2nd September 2023, 20:34
This is his level unfortunately. He will cost Aston championship positions and money but it would appear Father has enough to cover the bill. Shame, it’s a good seat going to waste on a driver who hit their drastically low peak several years ago.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
3rd September 2023, 3:22
I’m really curious about his next interview (lawrence), so far he said stroll is on f1 on merit, a potential championship contender and so on, I’d like to see if he ever makes any admittance regarding his abilities.
I mean, he was even targetting a double podium early this year.
Dale
3rd September 2023, 21:57
Not only has papa spent hundreds of millions so Lance could race in a factory F1 race team, but now Lance is repaying him by dragging the team to 4th when it could be 2nd in the constructors title … and costing Aston Martin a fortune in future prize money.
What a liability.