Lance Stroll: “We will look over the data and see what else we can learn”

Lance Stroll felt the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team did not have the pace to score points in the Australian Grand Prix, even though the Canadian did his best to sneak into the top ten late in the race.

Stroll ran as high as ninth but fell down the order in the closing laps to end twelfth, while also taking a five-second time penalty for weaving down the main straight whilst defending from Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Valtteri Bottas, although that didn’t affect his finishing position.

He was thankful to his team for fixing his car ahead of Qualifying after crashing in final practice, and he hopes they can unlock some pace from the AMR22 ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix so they can bring themselves off the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship standings.

“We did not quite have the pace for points today, although we were able to defend a position inside the top 10 for a while late on,” said Stroll.  “I think we had the right idea with our strategy by running the majority of the race on the Hard tyre, but we will look over the data and see what else we can learn.

“The five-second penalty was frustrating, even though it did not change our final race position. I caught Valtteri [Bottas] after the Virtual Safety Car and made up a place so it was frustrating to receive a penalty for weaving.

“I also want to say thank you to the team once again: everybody did a tremendous job to get the cars repaired this weekend. We will keep our heads up and dig deep to try to extract more from the car in the races to come.”

“My lack of race experience with this car did not help” – Sebastian Vettel

Team-mate Sebastian Vettel was using the Australian Grand Prix as an extended test session, with the German having missed the opening two races of the year following a positive COVID-19 test.

It was a weekend to forget for the four-time World Champion, with Vettel breaking down in first practice with an engine issue that also prevented him from running in second practice, before a crash in final practice on Saturday morning left his mechanics with work to do to ready the AMR22 for Qualifying.  He was able to get just one run in Q1, but it was not enough to advance into Q2.

It was then a tough race day for Vettel, with the German retiring after crashing at turn four on lap twenty-two in a car he acknowledged was challenging to drive.  But he knows the team will be searching for answers, and he hopes for a much more competitive weekend at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari at the end of April.

“My lack of race experience with this car did not help today,” said Vettel.  “I was pushing a little too hard and I lost the car on the kerbs at Turn Four and could not prevent the impact, which is very frustrating.

“Every lap in race conditions counts because this was my first time racing this car, so it is a shame not to have completed the race. We know that the car is challenging, but we are continuing to search for solutions to add more performance.

“Things did not go our way this week, but it is time to move on and I am confident that we can come back stronger at Imola.”