Lance Stroll off to a rocky start in Melbourne
Lance Stroll's learning curve remains complicated: after making contact with the wall in FP3, he was forced to change his gearbox and was only able to make one attempt in qualifying. He will therefore start last. Felipe Massa limited the damage, finishing 7th on the grid.
During the first week of testing in Barcelona, Lance Stroll made headlines in a way he would have preferred to avoid with three off-track excursions, which cost Williams valuable track time. Felipe Massa then followed with extensive running sessions to gather as much data as possible.
Lance Stroll, 19th (1:27.143 in Q1), will start 20th
This scenario somewhat repeated itself today in Australia. During a simulation in the last free practice session ahead of qualifying, Lance Stroll made a mistake and hit the wall. This forced the team’s mechanics to roll up their sleeves and especially to change the gearbox damaged by the impact, as explained by Paddy Lowe, the new team director: There was a lot of work on the car. We changed the entire rear as well as most of the front suspension. The team worked very hard to get the car ready for qualifying and only had time to do one lap. With a lot of pressure and virtually no practice in the car in a qualifying format, I think Lance still did a good job to achieve that time.
Nevertheless, the 18-year-old driver wasn’t necessarily able to find the pace and could not do better than 19th and second-to-last time. He couldn’t hide his disappointment at the end of the session: « I think we have to forget today, especially since our pace was much better than that. In FP2, we were half a second faster than in qualifying. »
It should still be noted that his best time in FP2 (1:26:525) would have only placed him two spots higher, in 17th position…
Felipe Massa, 7th (1:24.443 in Q3)
Conversely, Felipe Massa ensured the essentials by finishing 7th in the three qualifying sessions: « I am happy with my qualifying and my laps. It’s the first qualifying of the year and the first time I used the new ultra-soft tires after losing a few laps yesterday. »
He positions himself behind Romain Grosjean as Williams seeks to reclaim its status as the fourth power on the grid: « It would have been great to be 6th, but I think Romain had a very good lap that I wasn’t able to beat. »
The Brazilian will therefore be keen to bring back valuable points at the end of the race, while Lance Stroll’s objective will be to stay out of trouble and finish his first F1 race.
