Williams Martini Racing’s Lance Stroll has said he’s “looking forward” to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend after a trying Brazilian Grand Prix.
The Canadian finished sixteenth and last at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace after suffering a late puncture, courtesy of a flat spot caused by a mistake at Turn 1.
Having failed to make the second phase of Qualifying after the Williams team had corrected the mechanical problem that curtailed his Saturday morning practice session, Stroll was downbeat about a “very hard” weekend.
“Everything has been bad this weekend.” bemoaned the 19-year-old.
“It was very hard for me, because with the power unit we changed to after a problem in FP3, we had no qualifying mode, so I was running the old spec power unit and was losing time, lap after lap.”
Stroll spent much of the race fighting with fellow straggler Romain Grosjean with an already flat-spotted set of tyres. After an attempted move at Turn 1, Stroll locked up and wore his tyre down to the canvas, causing a spectacular looking failure, leaving him limping back to the pits for a late stop.
But Stroll believes he would’ve dispatched Grosjean much earlier had he not had the older power unit.
“I then stalled at the start and just couldn’t compete.”
I had a flat spot and I knew there was going to be a problem. I had Grosjean on old tyres, I had DRS but I didn’t have enough drive to get alongside him so I had to dive and then you risk a flat spot and that is just what happened.”
“All in all, it has been a tough weekend and now I am just looking forward to Abu Dhabi.”
