Lance Stroll was left baffled by his tyre issues as the long-time race leader finished P9 at the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday.

Starting from pole, the Canadian held the lead into Turn 1 and pulled out a solid lead over the field as he shone in the tricky conditions at Istanbul Park.

However, as the race progressed, his pace dropped on an initial set of intermediates, leading Stroll to pit again, and his second set never fired up as he fell back down the order.

“It [the intermediate tyres] was new but just grained again massively, no pace,” Stroll said of his drop-off after the second stop. “So we have to look into it, [it] was pretty terrible today.

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“I mean I don’t understand, we had so much graining on the first set of Inters, we decided to pit, [we] were losing seconds per lap.

“I don’t know where the graining came from, it happened instantly."

By contrast, teammate Sergio Perez stayed out on his first set of inters and carried them to the end, just holding off the two Ferraris to finish second.

"I told my team on the radio, I think one more lap on those tyres and they would have exploded," said the Mexican.

"The vibrations were extremely bad towards the end, but I think it also made that race, looking after them in the beginning [and] towards the end with drying conditions.

"The team did a fantastic job in terms of strategy reading the race. I think Lewis [Hamilton] today was extremely strong, and towards the end we died, but we managed to get a good result.”

Perez's first podium since Azerbaijan in 2018 saw Racing Point retake third in the Constructors' standings with just three races to go.

But that was of little comfort to Stroll.

“For sure... [but] it is frustrating when you’re in the lead by 10 seconds and you finish ninth," he said on if it was a good day for the team.

"I don’t understand how it happened. I mean I do, it’s graining, but we need to look into why it hit me so much.”