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Lance will start P9 for Formula One’s Italian Grand Prix after a frenetic F1 Sprint.
In the final practice session of the weekend, Lance began on the Soft compound Pirelli tyre to place himself into P11 after 15 minutes of the session.
A heavy crash for the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jr brought out the red flag with 32 minutes remaining, halting all running and sending the drivers back to the pits.
With only 21 minutes to go, the track was deemed clear and the session was resumed.
Lance was able to put in a 1:25.768 lap in the busy session to end in P17.
The Canadian lined up in P12 on the grid in F1’s second Sprint Race, opting to start on the Soft compound tyres alongside team-mate Sebastian Vettel in P11.
When the lights went out, Lance made an incredible launch to move up to P10 by the second corner before advancing to P9 after a crash for the Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly, which brought out the Safety Car.
At the end of lap three, the Safety Car ended and racing resumed with Red Bull’s Sergio Perez trying to hunt down the Canadian driver.
On lap nine, Perez attempted to take P9 from Lance as the pair went into Turn One but was unable to make the move stick, forcing him onto the escape road where he re-joined ahead of Lance.
The Red Bull driver was then forced to give back the position at the Ascari chicane, allowing Lance to retake P9.
By lap 10, Perez was able to catch Lance for the position and who set about fending off Alpine’s Fernando Alonso after falling to P10.
Lance was able to maintain P10 until the end of the Sprint. A grid penalty for Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas promotes Lance in P9 for the race.
Lance Stroll – Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One™ Team Driver
“That was a fun race today. It was not an easy decision to go for the soft tyre over the medium because, while it provides a better launch, degradation becomes a factor later on. We made a good start and gained some places in what was quite a tricky first chicane with all the tyre smoke and loose grass. I then had some good wheel-to-wheel racing with Checo [Perez] later on, too. He gave the position back to me a little later than I expected, which lost our DRS train and allowed [Fernando] Alonso to close in, but we were able to hold onto 10th. We will start tomorrow’s race in the mix for points and I think we can extract a little bit more pace from the car overnight. Overtaking is tricky here so strategy will be important, but I am looking forward to racing again tomorrow.”
The Italian GP will get underway at 2pm BST on Sunday September 12.
Monza
