Lance Stroll: “There are opportunities to move forward in the race”

Lance Stroll will start his one hundredth Grand Prix from thirteenth on the grid on Sunday, with the Canadian believing he got the maximum he could out of his AMR21 during Qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team racer hopes to be able to move forward and fight for points at the Yas Marina Circuit on Sunday, and should he achieve that, he feels it would be a good way to mark his one hundredth Formula 1 race.

“I think P13 was around the maximum we could have achieved today,” said Stroll.  “We made some changes to the set-up of the car today and I am happier with the balance, which is positive for tomorrow.

“We will have a free choice of tyres for the start of the race and plenty of options with strategy, so there are opportunities to move forward in the race. We should be fighting to score points.

“That would be a nice way to mark my 100th race in Formula 1.”

“It was not our day – mainly because of problems with traffic” – Sebastian Vettel

Team-mate Sebastian Vettel will start only fifteenth, with the German condemning the traffic in the final sector as cars all backed up to start their final flying laps in Q2.

Vettel was forced to come to a complete standstill that lost him tyre temperature for when he started his flying lap, and ultimately, he did not have the pace in the car to get into Q3.

The German believes he has the car under him that can move forward on race day, but he feels he could have been higher up the grid had it not been for that traffic in the final few turns.

“It was not our day – mainly because of problems with traffic,” said Vettel.  “I was held up [by Esteban Ocon] in Q1, but just made it through to Q2 where there were even more problems.

“All the drivers were backing up at the end of the lap and we saw some drivers jumping the queues. I had to come to a standstill and, as a result, I lost too much tyre temperature, which ruined my final quick lap.

“I should have been more selfish because other drivers do not respect the agreement to stay in order before they start their lap. We all end up at the same place because we try to maximise the sessions [with the same timings] but then you have the same drivers who always jump the queue.

“So we start from P15 and hopefully we can overtake a lot of cars tomorrow. Our race pace should be competitive so let us see what we can do.”

Sebastian Vettel was only fifteenth in Qualifying on Saturday – Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd