Lance Stroll has been slated for his formation lap antics
in Brazil, not because he spun off but because he “drove straight into that
f***ing gravel trap”.
Stroll had
a Sunday to forget at the Interlagos circuit as he crashed in the morning’s
qualifying session and, despite his mechanics working furiously to repair his
car, didn’t take the start grid after beaching his car on the formation lap.
Lance Stroll drove ‘straight into that f***ing gravel
trap’ in Brazil
But it’s how he beached his newly-repaired Aston Martin
AMR24 that earned him Olav Mol’s ire in Ziggo Sport’s broadcast.
Leaving the grid for the formation lap, Stroll appeared
to lock his rear wheel and spun off the track. Fortunately, he came to a stop
on asphalt, not a scratch on his AMR24.
And then disaster struck, and worse yet, it was all the
Canadian’s own doing.
Instead of using the asphalt access road to work his way
back onto the race track, Stroll threw a U-Turn and tried to cut through the
sodden gravel trap. As to be expected, his car became beached and his race was
over before it even began.
“He has the same intelligence as a dead dinosaur egg,”
Mol said as he laid into the driver.
“This is like standing in front of a lock and thinking,
‘Where should I go? Well, I’ll just drive into the water’.
“He drove straight into that f***ing gravel trap. He’s
really not right.”
His fellow pundit and former F1 driver Robert Doornbos also
wasn’t impressed with Stroll.
He put the Canadian’s gravel trap trip on a par with Sergio
Perez lining up in the wrong position in his pit box a week earlier in Mexico,
Doornbos saying those are mistakes that shouldn’t happen to experienced
drivers.
“Let’s not forget that the mechanics had to rebuild both
cars,” he said. “It is possible that you spin, which happened to Verstappen in
Hungary, but save the situation by looking for the reverse. You are lucky that
you have no real damage.
“He thinks to cut the track via the gravel trap, and then he
is stuck! How do you face your team then!
“You don’t expect these kinds of things from Formula 1
drivers, and for example that Sergio Perez couldn’t be in his starting box last
week. Your concentration is not there.”
Stroll’s pre-race exit left Aston Martin with just one car
on the starting grid, Fernando Alonso.
He too was racing a newly-repaired AMR24 having also crashed
in qualifying. Despite being in pain in the Grand Prix as Aston Martin suffered
from bouncing, he was adamant he was going to finish the race. He
did so P14.
.webp)
