Williams Martini Racing driver Lance Stroll had a tough introduction to F1 this weekend, but got a fantastic start to the 2017 Australian Grand Prix, before a brake disc failure ended his race prematurely.
The Canadian did well to avoid a collision between Haas F1 Team driver Kevin Magnussen and the Sauber F1 Team machine of Marcus Ericsson right in front of him, swiftly moving to the right of the incident, with the added bonus of making up a number of places.
However, in order to stay out of the trouble up ahead, Stroll had to lock up sharply, causing his tyre to flat spot and forcing the team into an earlier than planned pit stop for the rookie.
“Today we were running a decent race and the pace was pretty good. I had a good start, which was risky although I didn’t plan on it being quite so risky!
“Some guys braked quite early in front of me and I managed to gain some places, but then I had a flat spot so had to stop early and, strategy-wise, we changed to a two-stop.”
Despite that early set back, Stroll kept on pushing, and was at one stage as high up the order as thirteenth place, before a brake disc failure to the left front, put an early end to his race
“Then we managed to have a surprisingly good race. It was my first race, and first weekend, so there are a few positives to take out of it.
“We had what I believe was a brake disc failure. I just hit the pedal, it went long and I was lucky it was in a place where there was a lot of run-off.”
Having started form the back of the grid due to a crash in FP3, which enforced a gearbox change and a five-place grid penalty on Stroll, the Canadian is relatively pleased with the way he acquitted himself in Sunday’s race, and really enjoyed his first taste of competing in F1.
“Unfortunately, that incident yesterday cost us a lot of positions in qualifying, but today I enjoyed myself and so a big thank you to the team.”
