Lance Stroll qualified in 12th for this weekend's Russian Grand Prix-The rookie racer cleared Q1 with no issues, setting the 13th best time. He then set his fastest times of the first two sectors of his final lap of Q2, but a snatch of oversteer at Turn 15 cost him time and the lap was only enough for P12.
Given that this is a new circuit and there was a lot of learning to do this weekend and the tyres have been very tricky for everybody because of this smooth surface, Lance did a good job getting the car to P12. Following this he will be promoted from 12th to 11th, due to a grid penalty for Carlos Sainz for an incident in the recent Bahrain GP.
“It was a bit unfortunate at the end as I think Q3 was possible, but I just missed out at the end of my lap in Q2. I didn't get to do the warm up lap I wanted, and around here it is quite important to get the tyre working properly,” he said. “I had a good start to the lap and then I lost a lot of grip in the last sector, made a couple of mistakes and just lost the rear, which wasn't great.”
“I was a couple of tenths up but didn't manage to hold it. There is more in it. I think this weekend is quite tricky with tyres and getting them to work properly, but we can race from P12 (P11). It is a long race tomorrow, we will see what happens and hopefully luck is going to be a bit more on our side.”
