Stroll hit with three-place grid penalty for impeding in Q1

Aston Martin driver, Stroll, who had already been handed a one-place grid drop for a collision with Charles Leclerc during Friday’s running, qualified P19 on Saturday. Compounding what has been a difficult weekend for the Canadian.

In a statement explaining the decision, the FIA stewards said: “Car 18 was informed that Car 10 was arriving on a fast lap at Turn 10. From the radio communications, it appears that Car 18 was not informed/reminded that Car 44 (whom Car 18 had overtaken earlier in that lap) was also coming and that Car 44 was going to overtake Car 18.”

The stewards continued: “The driver of Car 18 assumed wrongly that there was only one car to be let by and when Car 44 (which was not on a fast lap) went by him, he moved back to the racing line, thereby impeding Car 10, which was on a fast lap.”

During the hearing, Stroll argued that he had misidentified the approaching car: “He stated that he could not tell the colour of the car that had overtaken him because of the position of the sun, which we accepted,” the stewards noted. He therefore wrongly assumed that there was no other car to be let by. In the circumstances, we imposed the usual penalty of a drop of 3 grid positions.”

Stroll finished the session in P19 on the time sheets, knocked out in Q1 while veteran Fernando Alonso, in the other Aston Martin, was P7; almost a second quicker than his teammate in the first stanza of Qualifying. Prompting a question that only grows louder: How much longer for Lance Stroll in Formula 1?