Lance Stroll will serve a four-place grid penalty for the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix after the stewards handed him a further three-place drop for impeding Pierre Gasly during a chaotic Q1 session on the streets of Monte Carlo.
Stroll had already carried a one-place penalty into qualifying following a clash with Charles Leclerc in final practice, and his Saturday went from bad to worse as he was eliminated in Q1 before being penalised for a separate incident involving Gasly.
What happened to Stroll in Monaco Qualifying?
The incident occurred under braking for the Nouvelle Chicane, where television footage showed Stroll moving back onto the racing line after letting Lewis Hamilton through, unaware that Gasly’s Alpine was fast approaching on a flying lap. Gasly was forced to take evasive action and immediately called the move “shocking” over team radio.
The stewards investigated the clash and, after reviewing footage and speaking to both drivers, found Stroll at fault. While the Canadian claimed he didn’t see Gasly due to the sun’s glare and mistakenly believed he had already yielded to the only car behind, the stewards ruled that the usual penalty for impeding—three grid places—was appropriate.
What does the statement say?
The stewards’ report read:
“Car 18 (Stroll) was informed that Car 10 (Gasly) 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 (Hamilton)… was also coming… The driver of Car 18 assumed wrongly that there was only one car to be let by… and impeded Car 10 which was on a fast lap.“
Despite the four-place drop (one from practice, three from qualifying), Stroll is expected to remain 19th on the grid, as Ollie Bearman is set to start from the back following a 10-place penalty of his own.
It capped off a miserable day for Stroll and Aston Martin, who dropped out in Q1 during a stop-start session interrupted by red flags and heavy traffic.
