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Angry Stroll shoves coach after Q1 exit
Lance Stroll pushed his performance coach in the Aston Martin garage after dropping out in Q1 again at the Qatar Grand Prix.
The Canadian has failed to escape Q1 in the past four races across Monza, Singapore, Japan and now Qatar, with the latest seeing him ending up 17th on the grid. With a margin of over 1.1 seconds to teammate Fernando Alonso, a frustrated Stroll climbed out of his car and went to walk to the back of the garage where his performance coach Henry Howe pointed him towards the pit lane to get weighed by the FIA, but Stroll brushed past him despite Howe’s attempts to hold him back.
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Howe then stepped in front of Stroll as he turned to go out of the rear of the garage, and Stroll reacted by firmly pushing his coach as they disappeared from view.
Asked about the incident – framed that it shows how much he cares – and what his emotions were after his Q1 exit, Stroll replied: “Yeah it’s s**t.”
The rest of his interview consisted of five further words across two questions, stating “I don’t know” when asked why things aren’t clicking at the moment, and adding that his mindset for the rest of the race weekend is: “Keep driving.”
Stroll will start 17th on Sunday with Alonso fourth, as Aston Martin looks to defend fourth in the constructors’ championship from McLaren, with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris starting sixth and tenth respectively after both having multiple lap times deleted in Q3.
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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