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Lance finishes the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in P7 but a post-race penalty drops him to P8.
With a wet track, conditions were already looking complicated for the race but there was drama for Lance before the lights had even gone out as the brakes on the Canadian’s Aston Martin caught on fire en route to the grid.
Luckily, Lance’s team were able to fix the issue and get him to the grid on time to start from P10.
Unfortunately, his issues didn’t stop there. Due to the wet conditions, Lance’s visor fogged up, hampering his sight for part of the race but thankfully, not affecting his performance as he made up three places in the first lap to P7.
Lance wasn’t able to hold onto the P7 position for long and ended up in battle with the Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly for the place. As the French driver struggled with his wet tyres on lap 11, Lance overtook him at Tamburello to reclaim the place, a pass which would later earn him a 5-second penalty.
As the conditions cleared and a dry line began to appear, Lance’s team opted for a two-stop strategy, bringing the Canadian in on lap 27/63 to change from the Intermediate compound Pirelli tyres onto a set of Medium (C3) compound tyre.
A red flag on lap 33 for a crash between the Williams of George Russell and the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas, paused running whilst the cars were removed, and the debris was collected from the circuit.
Once the race restarted, Lance was able to maintain his P7 position until the end of the race despite being faced with a gearbox problem which forced his teammate Sebastian Vettel to retire from the race with only one lap remaining.
Unfortunately, Lance was handed a five-place penalty and one penalty point for his move on Gasly during lap 11 which dropped him from P7 to P8.
Lance Stroll – Aston Martin Racing Driver
“That was a lot of fun with some exciting racing. We have scored some important points and I really enjoyed myself today. The weather made things a little bit interesting and we made the most of it. All credit to the crew on the grid for getting my car repaired after the brake problem, too. We also overcame a gear shift issue, which cost us lap time, but we managed to hang on until the end. It was just a very busy afternoon with so much happening, so I am really pleased to have scored six points. The car was nicely balanced this weekend, but we still have some work to do to catch the teams ahead of us. That is where our focus is now as we get ready for Portugal.”
Lance will return to track for FP1 of the Portuguese Grand Prix on Friday April 30 from 11:30am BST.
Imola
