After undergoing a procedure for his wrist pain, Lance Stroll came back in record time in hopes to be prepared for his home grand prix. Unfortunately, FP2 came to a quick end for the home hero when he touched the wall at turn 7 and suffered damage to the car.
With a damaged car, Stroll did not get to set a time for the session, and will have to work to get the most out of FP3 later this evening.
Although Friday was unfortunate for the Canadian, he still appeared to be in relatively high spirits when speaking in the media pen. When asked about the FP2 incident, Stroll simply explained: “Yeah, just a bit of understeer and I touched the wall.”
He continued on to say that the first day back in the car felt “quite good”, and he “was happy”. When asked if he felt any pain, he stated “No, felt good!”.
Stroll positive despite early FP2 end
The Canadian was later asked about his feeling for the rest of the weekend and appeared to be hopeful, saying: “Yeah, we’ll see what we can do tomorrow, a new day tomorrow”
Stroll seemed to be looking forward to a new day in the car and ready to get back to work. As his Friday ended sooner than expected, he did not have the chance to fully come to understand the feeling of the car. The Canadian expressed that he was a bit uncertain about if the feeling of the car was good in FP2, stating that:
“Uhm, it was like the first lap, so tough to say, but we’ll reset and go again tomorrow.”
Additionally, he clarified that the morning in FP1 was better. Stroll finished the session in P15 and managed to get 25 laps in.
“Yeah, not too bad. I think we made some changes, unfortunately we didn’t really get to feel the changes we made, but we go again tomorrow.” he stated about the morning session.
A superb day for Alonso
His teammate, Fernando Alonso, was lucky to have a better day. Although he finished the first Free Practice session in P12, FP2 was a smoother run for the Aston Martin driver. The two-time World Champion was consistently improving throughout the FP2 session and managed to finish it in P5. When the question of where he believes they are based on Friday’s performance came up, Alonso expressed:
“Difficult to guess, I think this track is always… I mean, it was good for us. I think the car feels good, but still not an easy circuit to put a lap together. You have to try many times, and sometimes it’s in turn 3, sometimes it’s in the last corner, but yeah. You have to take these escape roads, and you know, it’s always difficult to put everything together.“
“It’s going to be the same tomorrow, so we have to be focused. We have to be lucky also in putting the lap in the right time. Also, the tires they seem to take a little bit of laps to get into temperature but then when they are in temperature they grain, so there is only one or two laps where you can see performance, so yeah I think it’s going to be the same tomorrow.”
After securing his first points of the season at the Spanish GP, where he finished the race P9, Alonso will hope to continue to push for points this weekend.
Preparing for qualifying
During the FP2 session, the Spanish driver opted to stick to the soft C6 tires. Still, it was Mercedes’ George Russell who managed to top the timing sheets with a lap time of 1:12.123, on the medium tire.
When asked if the medium tires will be the right choice for qualifying, the two time World Champion expressed that it is difficult to tell on this circuit.
“We don’t know. Obviously, FP1 and FP2 are the least important sessions of the weekend. We know the track is getting grippier throughout the weekend, it’s a street circuit, so a lot of track evolution. So I think we want to do a proper test tomorrow in FP3.”
The Gilles Villeneuve circuit can be tricky to handle, but it is a track Alonso is fairly familiar with. Last year he secured a P6 in the race, right ahead of his teammate, Stroll, in P7. The team will hope to have an equally fine race weekend this year. It will be interesting to see what the Aston Martin duo can do in qualifying later this evening.
