The lack of seat time for Lance during Friday’s practice sessions may have had far-reaching implication for the rest of his weekend. Aston Martin reserve driver Felipe Drugovich had his turn in the AMR23 during FP1, then Lance ground to a halt on his outlap during FP2.
Having failed to set a time at all on Friday, Lance set his first competitive times in FP3, getting as many laps under his belt as possible and ultimately finishing the session in P11.
Saturday’s qualifying would come to a premature end for Lance, after a lack of pace from the car and a lap time deletion for track limits resulted in P20 overall and a Q1 exit.
After a clean getaway, Lance made his way past the Haas of Kevin Magnussen on Lap 3. By Lap 17, he'd made his way up to p12 at the expense of others pitting.
On Lap 21, Lance opted to pit for new hard tyres dropping him down the order to P18. Just 14 laps later though, The Aston Martin F1 driver has risen back through the ranks to P14.
In the closing stages of the race, Lance conceded positions whilst battling resurgent Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri, ultimately crossing the line in P16.
"The car didn’t have the pace we needed today, so it was a tough race to manage. We tried to do something slightly different with the strategy and only stopped once, but the tyres were falling off towards the end of the stint, so I wasn’t able to hold position. It’s been a difficult weekend for us, so we have some work to do before we head to Singapore in a couple of weeks."