The good form of Aston Martin is confirmed. At the Canadian Grand Prix on Friday, Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel did well in the first and second free practice sessions, respectively.
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At the start of the afternoon, Stroll covered the Gilles-Villeneuve circuit in 1 min 15.877 s – exactly the same time as Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – to finish in seventh position.
Then, later, Vettel climbed into fourth place by virtue of a lap of 1:14.442, just 315 thousandths of a second behind leader Max Verstappen (Red Bull). Distant 12th, Stroll (1:15.396) could have improved his situation, but he was hampered during his flying lap.
“I think we were competitive today, launched the Quebecer, in the rain. Both sessions were good. We had traffic for the last flying lap, so we didn’t have the opportunity to improve the lap, but in general, we were competitive.
Stroll, whose best result on Île Notre-Dame is ninth place (2017 and 2019), now believes that this level of performance can carry over to qualifying.
“We showed the speed [vendredi]then the objective is [d’atteindre le troisième segment des qualifications].”
Good evolution
Already on Thursday, the Montrealer said he was optimistic with the recent results obtained with the help of the major evolution of the car introduced in Spain.
“I think it’s definitely in the right direction,” he said. It gives us more opportunities to adjust the car to different types of track. With [l’ancienne voiture], we were very competitive on circuits like in Miami, where we were in a position to score points, and on others, we were really far. Now we are competitive on circuits like Monaco and Baku, two very different types of tracks. It’s encouraging for the whole team.”