A deployment issue on his Williams Martini Racing car left Lance Stroll unable to advance to Q2 in Qualifying for the United States Grand Prix, with his day further compounded by a grid penalty for blocking Romain Grosjean.
The Canadian ended the session down in seventeenth, missing out on Q2 by just 0.033 seconds, but the engine issue lost him at least eight-tenths of a second, which would have comfortably see him follow team-mate Felipe Massa into the second session.
Stroll feels there is pace in the car to move forward on Sunday, but the youngest driver on the grid was disappointed with another lowly grid slot in his rookie season.
“It was a bad day,” said Stroll. “It was a problem with the power unit not deploying its energy correctly.
“It cost me eight tenths of a second on the back straight and it cost me my last lap. It is just one of those things, not a human error, just an unlucky situation. With these very complicated power units this sort of thing can happen, as the energy went into a saving mode and not a qualifying mode.
“I am obviously very disappointed, but now we can see what we can do tomorrow as there was more pace in the car. It’s another race, we are starting near the back and we will go forward.”
