Lance Stroll says the pass on Daniel Ricciardo was a bonus to score a point in F1 Canadian GP, as Sebastian Vettel rues strategy and VSC situation.
For Aston Martin’s Stroll, it was a good day in the end after a miserable qualifying in Canadian GP. Languishing on the ninth row of the grid, he fought his way through to take tenth place and the final point in the race.
The Canadian did an impressive 47 laps on the hard tyre and was up to eighth place before pitting and switching to the medium compound and with seven laps remaining overtook McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo for the final point in the race and was understandably delighted with his result.
“We had a great strategy for this race, and I am super-pleased to have been able to score a point,” said Stroll. “We did a great job deciding to go long on the first set of tyres to make a one-stop race work, managing to keep a string of cars behind me. The overtake on Daniel was a nice bonus – we were on fresher tyres, so it was a pretty easy move.”
For Stroll and Aston Martin, it has been a tough season so far and if anything quite disappointing as a lot was expected of the Silverstone based outfit and for the Canadian, it was his best result since Miami and he readily admits things are a lot tougher this season in more ways than one.
“Things are certainly a lot more challenging this year, but I am pleased to have had a successful race,” said Stroll. “It’s been incredible to race at home after such a long time away.” By contrast, team mate Vettel had a disappointing weekend.
Running in the top ten in all FP sessions including third in FP3, he did however like his teammate fail to get out of Q1. Strategy issues saw him pit and subsequently losing out just before the first Virtual Safety Car. For Vettel, it really was a case of having showed so much promise and failure to deliver when it mattered most.
“It just was not our day,” said Vettel. “We made an early stop to find some clear air, but then the Virtual Safety Cars came along at the wrong time. That really compromised my race. At the end, I was on very old rubber, and I tried to hang on, but it did not work out. Lance was on fresher tyres, and the team asked me to let him past to attack Daniel, which I was happy to do.”
It really was bad luck. After the pace shown in the three Free Practice sessions, it was surely odds on for the German to reach Q2 at least but some days are just like that. He was nevertheless a touch philosophical but was also pleased for his teammates performance.
“The result was frustrating – we had shown good pace this weekend and could have had a better result, but sometimes things do not go your way,” said Vettel. “It felt like one of those days. Well done to the team for all their hard work and to Lance for scoring a point.”
In two weeks time the Grand Prix circus returns to Europe and Silverstone for the British Grand Prix and not just that but Aston Martin are of course the local team being based nearby. On the back of Stroll’s race performance and Vettel’s FP results, their confidence should also be on the increase for a decent result.