Lance Stroll enjoyed one of his better days of his rookie season as the young Canadian finished an impressive sixth in second practice around the Baku Street Circuit, having earlier finished eleventh in the first session.
The Williams Martini Racing driver, coming to Azerbaijan on the back of his first points finish of his Formula 1 career in Canada, had a clean day between the barriers on Friday, and ended up setting a best time of 1:44.113s in the afternoon session, just 0.751 seconds off the best time of pacesetter Max Verstappen.
Stroll felt it was important to have a clear run to get used to the track and gain confidence, and he said that it was an all-round positive day on track that he hopes translates into a strong weekend.
“That was good fun, as I am enjoying the track,” said Stroll. “The car was working well and we didn’t have any issues, which was great.
“I felt the balance was good and now we just need to think overnight, improve on little bits, come back tomorrow and continue pushing. I think what was really positive was we didn’t have any issues, and nothing that got in the way of us running our programmes.
“What was really important for me on this kind of track was to get confidence on every lap and every run. Today we did exactly that and didn’t lose any laps with problems or stuff going wrong.
“Things could be better, as this is still the first day of my first time here and we could improve for the qualifying run, but all in all I have to say it was a very positive day in many ways.”
