Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team’s Lance Stroll recovered from a pit-lane start in Miami on Sunday to finish the inaugural Miami Grand Prix in 11th place only to be promoted to tenth after Fernando Alonso was handed a five-second penalty.
Speaking following the race (before being promoted to the points) Stroll said:
“Overall a frustrating afternoon. It was a shame to start from the pit lane but once the race was underway we showed some reasonable pace today. It was quite difficult to overtake off-line, but we made good decisions and put ourselves in a position to finish inside the top 10 by pitting under the Safety Car. I think points could have been on the table, but a bad restart and contact with Kevin [Magnussen] prevented that.”
Sebastian Vettel also started the race from the pit lane after the Silverstone-based outfit discovered that the fuel for both of their cars was too cold to put in the car and instead of being penalized the team opted to start both cars from the pit lane.
Sebastian Vettel ultimately retired from the race and speaking following the event he said:
“It is a shame for this weekend to end in the way that it did and we should have done better. We had a fuel temperature issue before the race which meant that we started from the pit lane. For the majority of the race I was stuck in traffic, it was quite difficult to overtake, and the DRS was not that effective. When the Safety Car was deployed, we moved into the top 10, but Mick [Schumacher] and I had contact, which cost both of us points.”
Aston Martin Aramco Cognzant F1 Team Principal Mike Krack said:
“Today was a frustrating day. First, we had a fuel temperature issue that delayed the release of our cars from the garage, resulting in both our drivers starting the race from the pit lane. They made good progress on Hard tyres early on, and we were able to bring them in for Mediums during the Safety Car deployment triggered by [Lando] Norris’s lap-41 shunt. Sebastian was then running in 11 th place on new Mediums, just behind [Esteban] Ocon on older Softs and [Mick] Schumacher on older Hards. On his fresh Mediums, Sebastian duly leveraged that tyre advantage to displace them both, and was then lying in ninth place, looking good for some valuable world championship points. Sadly, it all ended for Seb through no fault of his own, as a result of a coming-together with an over-ambitious Schumacher. Equally, in the closing stages, Lance fell foul of [Kevin] Magnussen, who earned a penalty for causing a collision, as a result of which Lance ended up 11 th . In summary, the 2022 Miami Grand Prix was a disappointing race for us, but it is a great addition to the Formula One calendar and we hope that the spectators here all had an enjoyable day.”