The Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team came so close to achieving their pre-race goal of scoring a double points finish at the Belgian Grand Prix, with Sebastian Vettel finishing eighth and Lance Stroll in eleventh.
Vettel drove superbly in his last race at Spa-Francorchamps. The German demonstrated solid pace capable of battling with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, something which has been virtually impossible for the four-time World Champion this season given the AMR22’s mixed performance.
Stroll also drove brilliantly, but in the end didn’t quite have enough to beat Alex Albon for the final points place. The Canadian driver was stuck behind Albon for an obscene number of laps, with the Thai/British driver having seemingly made his car a mile wide. Stroll ended up being caught in a DRS train, meaning he had to balance his focus between attacking and defending.
Team Principal Mike Krack was hoping both drivers would finish in the points; however, he did praise Stroll for “executing some impressive” overtakes.
“After qualifying yesterday we said that our aim would be to score points with both cars in today’s race, and we very nearly achieved just that: Sebastian finished a fine eighth, and Lance ended up 11th, less than a second behind the 10th-placed finisher [Albon]. We started both cars on Mediums, then split the strategies [Vettel: Medium-Hard-Medium; Stroll: Medium-Medium-Hard].
“Both drivers optimised the chances that those two strategies gave them, Lance in particular executing some impressive overtaking manoeuvres en route, and as I say we were only a whisker away from scoring points with both cars. From here we go straight to Zandvoort [Netherlands], where we will be hoping to add further to our World Championship points total.”
