Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, Miami International Autodrome, 2023

Stroll’s Q1 exit shows Aston Martin’s qualifying strategy was “too aggressive”

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack admits the team didn’t get it entirely right in qualifying, where Fernando Alonso qualified second but Lance Stroll was eliminated in the first round.

In brief

Aston Martin “too aggressive” on tyre strategy

Stroll dropped out in Q1 after running a single set of soft tyres through the session in a bid to save a set for Q2. Krack said his driver’s elimination in 18th place shows his team took too great a risk.

“We were too aggressive with our tyre strategy in Q1, choosing to keep both drivers on used softs for their second runs,” he said. “It was a marginal call, and it didn’t work out.

“The track ramped up and drivers on fresh rubber found a lot of lap time. It meant that Lance finished the session an unrepresentative 18th overall. If we’d done a better job, he would have comfortably made it into the next two sessions. We’ll learn from that for the future.”

Piastri has “future world champion” potential – Brown

McLaren CEO Zak Brown says rookie Oscar Piastri has demonstrated over the first four rounds of his F1 career that he has enough potential to develop into a future world champion.

“We’re very impressed with him,” said Brown. “He’s very focused. He’s not really made certainly not any big mistakes. Typical exploring the limits, so the odd lock of a wheel here and there.

“He’s never been to Miami, he’s not been to all these races, so early indications are we’ve got a future world champion on our hands. We just have to work to give him a faster car now.”

Rowland avoids broken hand in Mortara clash

Formula E driver Oliver Rowland avoided a serious injury to his hand after a clash with Edoardo Mortara led to his retirement from yesterday’s Monaco Eprix.

The Mahindra driver was running 11th behind the two Maseratis on the sixth lap of the race when he ran into the back of Mortara’s car under braking for the chicane. Although Rowland continued to drive for more than 10 more laps, he eventually retired. In a post on social media, Mahindra confirmed that he had pulled out of the race “due to an injury to his hand”.

“After being checked by the medical team at the track, he was taken to the Princess Grace Hospital in Monaco for an X-Ray,” the team stated. “The results of the X-Ray showed that thankfully there were no broken bones, just bruising and some swelling. Oliver is in good spirits and looks forward to the next round in Jakarta.”

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Comment of the day

With Christian Horner suggesting that there many not be enough garage or paddock space at some circuits to accommodate an 11th team in Formula 1, PeterG is not buying it…

Considering F1 used to have 13 teams/26 cars with more trying to pre-qualify back in the days when pit/paddock facilities were smaller, more cramped and less organised I see no reason why having the same number of teams/cars would be a problem today given the better facilities on offer and how many of the permanent venues also host GT/Sportscars that have far larger grids.

I also maintain the view that teams should have zero say or influence on if there are more teams or not. That should be left in the hands of the FIA and F1 as they are supposed to be the people running the sport with the teams/drivers been competitors who over time will come and go.

If the FIA and/or Liberty want 11, 12, 13 or even more teams on the grid then it should be there decision and if existing teams don’t like it then tough, Go race somewhere else and get far less exposure and far less money.
PeterG

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Peter Dixon and Jonny705!

On this day in motorsport

  • 45 years ago today Patrick Depailler claimed his first grand prix victory for Tyrrell at Monaco

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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6 comments on “Stroll’s Q1 exit shows Aston Martin’s qualifying strategy was “too aggressive””

  1. Oh, it wasn’t just me noticing the empty stands! I guess everyone got over the novelty of Miami after last year. Fixing pricing ought to solve the problem by the sounds. I mean, what does a race at Miami have over Melbourne or Singapore? F1 fans know what a reasonable price for a ticket is. Those duped by Netflix will quickly learn.

    1. @tommy-c Yeah, at first I thought ‘oh it’s just Friday, everyone is at work’ for the FP sessions. But then with qualifying there were still swathes of empty stands. The organisers seemed Ill-prepared for it with the production. Plenty of crane cams and what I assume are drone shots that clearly showed loads of empty seats for long periods of time.

      At least in China, you couldn’t really tell if anyone was there or not. Except for the empty grandstand on the outside of whatever the long banked corner is called.

      I think one of the F1 games had that somewhat optimistically full of people.

  2. COTD
    Have to agree with Peter G on this.
    To take a page out of C Horner’s play-book, it seems silly to let the Turkeys decide the menu for Christmas.
    If pit space and parking facilities for motor homes is the sticking point, get the track owners to fix the issue. Yes a hassle and an expense, but more teams should help attendance and most tracks already have the space and facilities, as Peter G suggested.
    As for financial dilution as a direct result of new teams, my understanding of the prize money payout at the end of the season, if a team finishes ahead of all the new teams, there is very little dilution. The biggest “losers” are those that finish behind the newcomers. Ask Toyota about this probability.

  3. The Q1 tyre strategy indeed was wrong in hindsight, although risky in the first place, so better not to take chances again.

    Re Keith’s tweet: Indeed.

    I share COTD’s view, although not necessarily for the last paragraph.

  4. Alonso’s Q3 time was set on used tires.

  5. Samuel Macea’s comment on Twitter is pretty incredible (it being only $300 more expensive to fly over from Miami and attend the Barcelona GP than visiting the race in his hometown.)

    Some races get away with charging a huge premium for F1 and still sell out (Spa comes to mind), but it seems Miami is not doing so well so far (maybe the race will be a bit better).

Comments are closed.