Lance Stroll: First points with a taste of victory
Lance Stroll scored the first points of his career in front of his home crowd in Montreal, silencing critics of his abilities. Felipe Massa was more unlucky, abandoning his car on the opening lap after Carlos Sainz"s Toro Rosso crashed into it beyond his control.
Often criticized since the beginning of the season, Lance Stroll chose his home race in Canada to score his first points of the season. An event even more emotionally significant for the Williams driver: “It’s special. I really feel good for many reasons. Words cannot describe how I feel. All I can say is that it has been a very tricky start to the season. We knew we were capable of it. There have been many obstacles on the way to the points, including collisions and technical issues…”
But after a serious attacking race and also a few retirements ahead of him, Stroll was finally able to experience a trouble-free race: « Today, we had a clean day and that’s what I was saying since the beginning of the weekend: we needed a problem-free weekend, a clean Sunday, and it would come to us. That’s what happened! »
“It’s special to have the opportunity to fight and overtake. That doesn’t happen every weekend. Sometimes it’s very boring, and you end up in your starting position. But today, it wasn’t like that; it was fun even though it was stressful with Alonso behind who never gave up. Every time I set a faster lap, he would do another right after. It never stopped!” the Canadian further specifies.
As a flood of criticism rained down on him, Stroll always remained confident, and these first points are a reward for his efforts: « I never doubted. I knew we needed to improve. Everything is not perfect, far from it. But I know our pace is very good when everything goes well. We saw that in qualifying in China, Russia, and Bahrain. Even in races, but we always had obstacles. This time there weren’t any. »
« We made overtakes, we had to fight all along but it was clean, solid, and on some laps, when I saw that I couldn’t overtake, I waited and did it a bit later. It was great. » concluded the Williams driver.
For his part, Felipe Massa didn’t have much opportunity to enjoy the race. Hit by the Sainz missile on the first lap, the Brazilian remained incredulous about the outcome of his Grand Prix: “I am so disappointed to be out after only three corners. I was a complete passenger in the collision. I think Carlos was hit by someone… It’s a shame to finish the race like that!” he said, dejectedly.
