It was a tough day for the Aston Martin team in the Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix and Lance Stroll was no exception. The driver from Quebec had to settle for the 17th fastest time in qualifying on Friday in Spielberg.
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Despite completing twelve laps at the Red Bull Ring, the 23-year-old still managed a time of 1:06.847. He finished behind Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) but ahead of Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo), Nicholas Latifi (Williams) and his teammate Sebastian Vettel, who also had a bad day at the office.
“It’s always a challenge here with the limits of the track. But still we didn’t quite have the speed today to get into Q2,” Stroll said on his team’s website.
Luckily for the Aston Martins, they have an opportunity to make up a few places in Saturday’s sprint race, which precedes the next day’s Grand Prix. Keep in mind that this is one of the three events of the season with Italy and Brazil that will use this competitive format.
“Of course we will try to make up a few places in tomorrow’s sprint and our pace looked decent in free practice earlier. So there is still potential for the weekend,” he added.
Qualifying was characterized by spins in the two Mercedes in the third section (Q3). George Russell and Lewis Hamilton alternately lost control of their race car on corners and then crashed into the wall. A red flag had to be waved each time. They start as 6th or 10th.
It was Max Verstappen (Red Bull) who just secured the lead by being the only one to go under 1min 05s. The two Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will follow him on the grid.