The Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team left the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya without adding to their 2021 points tally, despite Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel being involved in the battle for the top ten places.
Pierre Gasly’s late push saw him pass Stroll for the final point, with the Canadian admitting he did not have the pace when it mattered in the battle with the Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda driver.
He also found himself in a battle with Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso that saw him run off track at turn one as they banged wheels, but he felt it was just a racing incident with the Spaniard.
“It is a bit frustrating not to get the point at the end,” admitted Stroll, who finished in the end just where he qualified in eleventh. “We fought hard with the AlphaTauri, but just did not have enough to get P10.
“We also raced hard against Fernando [Alonso] and the moment at Turn One was a racing incident: I braked deep into the corner and he was late on the brakes. We made some contact and he pushed me wide.”
Despite missing out on points, Stroll feels the team have learned more about how to improve the car further heading into the Monaco Grand Prix weekend.
“This weekend has helped us continue to learn and improve the car,” added the Canadian. “We will keep pushing to unlock some more speed before Monaco.”
“I was running out of tyre life at the end” – Sebastian Vettel
Team-mate Vettel continues to strive for his first top ten finish since joining Aston Martin, with the German starting and finishing thirteenth.
He admitted to suffering with tyre life despite pitting twice during the afternoon, although he feels coming out behind Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN’s Kimi Räikkönen hurt him in the final stint and cost him the chance of a top ten result.
“It was quite a tricky afternoon, and I was running out of tyre life at the end, even though we went for the two-stop strategy,” said Vettel. “I made quite an early second stop and came out behind Kimi [Räikkönen], which I think hurt my tyres quite a lot.
“That is what made it difficult to fight for points. With hindsight, it is always easy to say what you would do differently, but it was difficult to fight the cars around me in the closing laps when they had a tyre advantage.”
The four-time World Champion knows the team will continue to press to improve during the 2021 season, and with nineteen races still to go, he expects further steps forward in future races.
“But we will keep working hard and we know there is a long season still ahead of us,” he said. “The new parts we had here helped, and we need to keep taking steps forward each weekend.”
