Lance Stroll: “We still have speed to find and a few things we can tweak here and there”

Lance Stroll felt the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team will need to wait until Saturday’s running at the Circuit of the Americas to find out where they are in relation to their rivals despite a strong opening free practice session on Friday for the Canadian.

Stroll ended an encouraging fourth fastest behind only Carlos Sainz Jr., Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton as the United States Grand Prix weekend got underway with free practice one on Friday, although he was only fifteenth in the unrepresentative second practice that was dedicated to a Pirelli tyre test.

The one-time polesitter in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship says there is still pace to find from his AMR22, but he hopes the pace shown on Friday can translate into a good weekend for the team.

“It felt pretty good out there today, but tomorrow’s practice session will probably give a better indication of where we stack up in this really close midfield,” said Stroll.  “We were able to focus on both long and short runs despite the reduced running in FP1, so that was useful. 

“But, we still have speed to find and a few things we can tweak here and there to find some performance. Everyone is in the same boat in terms of preparation this weekend due to the tyre test.

“On those tyres we ran this afternoon, it was difficult to generate heat quickly with the cooler tyre blankets.”

“There are some things we will adapt on the set-up” – Sebastian Vettel

Team-mate Sebastian Vettel, racing in his last United States Grand Prix as a Formula 1 driver before retirement, also enjoyed a relatively strong opening practice on Friday, but he felt they did not get the best of conditions.

The German ended tenth fastest in the opening session and nineteenth in the second, but the tailwind in the first sector made for tough set-up calls, and he felt there is still some time to find if they can get the set-up right on his AMR22.

“We did a lot of laps early in FP1 and perhaps we did not catch the track at its best, but I think we got the answers we need to prepare for the rest of the weekend,” said Vettel.  

“There are some things we will adapt on the set-up, especially to improve the balance through sector one where a tailwind is making things quite tricky.

“The afternoon session was dominated by the Pirelli tyre testing. It made it difficult to learn a huge amount more, but any time in the car is always useful and we tried a few things.”

Sebastian Vettel is racing in the United States for the final time as a Formula 1 driver this weekend – Credit: Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team