Crash ends Lance’s Saturday prematurely in Azerbaijan

Lance Stroll will start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from 19th on the grid following an accident in qualifying.

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In the final practice session of the weekend, Lance made an early outing and utilised the 60-minute window to run on all three Pirelli tyre compounds.

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Putting in a benchmark 1.47.837 lap time, Lance placed inside the top 10 in the opening stages before a flurry of fast lap pushed him down to 13th position.

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Continuing to improve, he put in his best lap time, a1.44.879, to place 13th with 17 laps completed.

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In qualifying, the Canadian emerged on the Soft tyres and placed ninth on his first run.

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Unfortunately, Lance sustained damage after making contact with the barrier at Turn Seven following a double front lock-up before taking a second hit at Turn Two to cause a red flag.

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Lance will start the Azerbaijan Grand Prix from 19th position on the grid.

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Lance Stroll – Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One™ Team Driver

“It was an optimised session but being over a second from pole is not where we want to be, it's probably the biggest gap we've seen this year. It's a tricky circuit, the most amount of 'real' corners we've experienced this season, so we have lots of work to do. The lap felt good, the car felt good but obviously the gap isn't. We expect so much from ourselves and we're working so hard to bring more performance, but definitely this weekend has brought out the strengths and the weaknesses from all of us. The feeling inside the car is okay other than down the straights, every single bump is the most rigid I have ever felt from any race car before and I can barely see the braking zone. But through the corners the car feels good, so we know it's not a balance thing or not getting the car in the right window with the set up - it's more the downforce. We're balancing a lot of limitations to try and get the downforce. We know there's a lot there, but we just don't know how to extract it.”

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