Lance Stroll admitted he and the Williams team were surprised by how comfortably he made it through to Q3 for the first time this season at the Italian GP.

With the aerodynamic issues of their car less influential on the straights of Monza, the British team enjoyed their most successful qualifying with the Canadian 10th and Sergey Sirotkin 12th.

The result also continued what has been a steady upward trend in recent races as some of the major flaws are addressed, though has still seen Williams stuck at the back of the grid.

Still, at the track where he started second a year ago, Stroll was pleased by how everything played out.

"I think it was all pretty straight-forward today," he told Sky Sports. "I know we didn't expect that coming into it, we expected a much more challenging session.

"It all kind of came together in Q1, the car felt good, we managed to get a good tow all the way through our qualifying and that helped us.

"I put in a good lap in Q2 to get into Q3, and yeah, one of those when it just kind of all clicked."

Such has been the problems with the Williams car, that Stroll and teammate Sirotkin have often struggled to simply stay on the racetrack with the very nervous handling.

"For sure we've had a tough run when you look at the results, and in the cockpit, it hasn't been very pleasant for a few months now," added the 19-year-old.

"But today I'm really pleased for everyone and really happy for us as a team. I think we really deserve this result and it was one of those when I had a good chemistry with the car, and hooked it up."

Sky also took the opportunity to ponder if his performance was somehow boosted by the knowledge of a pending move up the grid to Force India, potentially as soon as Singapore.

"I don't compete for those reasons, I do it to prove to myself and I embrace the challenge, I'm not here to prove to everyone what I can do," he responded.

"That’s a big part of the business but I'm just really happy for us as a team.

"The people I work with every day, we put in a lot of hours and we look for every tenth all the time and a result like really just makes everything worth it.

"We'll see what the future holds, I'm really not thinking about that right now, I'm just going to enjoy the moment," he added. "I'm sure it's going to sink in later and I'm looking forward to an exciting race tomorrow.

"We're going to be in the mix which has been rare this year."