Lance recovers to points finish in home race at Montréal

Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One® Team arrived at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve with a number of upgrades to the AMR23 and with the team looking to learn as much as possible about them during the weekend.

Lance wore a special helmet for his home event, dotted with QR codes for his favourite locations in Montréal.

During Free Practice One an issue with local CCTV surfaced after just three laps of running for Lance and for most drivers meaning that session was effectively cancelled, although he had clocked the third-fastest time.

This led to FP2 being extended to 90 minutes. It was interrupted by two red flags, but Lance got in a healthy number of laps, his fastest of which was safely in the top 10, before rain arrived late on.

FP3 was also affected by rain, but it was anticipated that it would remain for qualifying. Lance again put in a good number of laps and delivered a decent time ahead of Q1.

Lance was able to safely make it through the first segment, but a spin in Q2 meant that he missed out on the best of the track conditions, limiting him to 13th in the session. Additionally, he picked up a penalty for impeding another driver.

Starting from 16th, Lance opted for a Medium-Hard-Hard strategy in the Grand Prix. He was able to pick up a couple of places – on Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen – in the opening stages of the race, and then another one when Pierre Gasly in front pitted on lap 10 as a DRS train began to form.

Lance responded by pitting a lap later for his first set of Hards. However, on lap 12, debris from a crash for George Russell brought out the Safety Car, allowing many of Lance's direct rivals to take a cheap pitstop.

When the race resumed, the lengthy DRS train continued and Lance was not able to make much progress in it. Therefore, the team opted to bring him in for his second set of Hard tyres on lap 27 to put Lance in clean air.

This worked, and Lance was able to pick up a few places to be in 12th position. When Russell retired, and Lando Norris picked up a time penalty, this put points on the cards for Lance.

In the final moments of the Grand Prix, Lance was able to get by Bottas's Alfa Romeo to take another place, finishing ninth once Norris's penalty was applied.

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Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One® Team driver:

It was a good recovery drive to score a couple of points this afternoon. We got unlucky with the Safety Car; pitting a lap before it was deployed meant we missed out on a cheaper stop while the cars around us were able to take that opportunity. At that point our focus had to shift to damage limitation and trying to pick up a couple of points for the team. There are still positives to take from the race; the AMR23 felt strong and was performing well. I had a fun final lap too, overtaking Valtteri [Bottas] just before the finish line. To hear the cheers from the grandstands when I took the position was great, and I want to say thank you to all the fans who have shown their support this weekend.

Lance will be in action next for Formula One's second Sprint weekend of the season – on 2 July at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.