Lance Stroll sought the positives from his Turkish Grand Prix weekend after understanding his drop in performance mid-race.
The Canadian led by 10 seconds at one point as he mastered the tricky conditions at Istanbul Park, but what later emerged as a damaged strake under his front wing caused his pace to slow.
To make matters worse, while others made a second stop for intermediates work, Stroll only fell back after doing the same eventually crossing the line a lowly ninth.
“I felt it immediately,” he said of the loss of grip caused by the damage to RaceFans on Thursday, “just a big increase in understeer and a loss of load on the front end. I wasn’t sure if I had damage at the time, though.
“Then I picked up a lot of front graining from Lap 20 onwards and I lost my gap that I had to Checo. So that wasn’t so coincidental.
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“From there when I went onto the new set of inters I had no pace and a lot of understeer and a lot of front graining. So it all makes sense now, looking back at the race.”
Still, for Stroll, the Turkish GP produced moments he’ll never forget and will look to learn from in the future.
“Now we’ve understood why the tyres didn’t perform as expected, I can take the positives from it all,” he continued.
“Obviously, at first I was frustrated because, after the amazing high of taking pole position, we led more laps than anyone else in the race only to not make the podium.
“[But] the first stint, building a lead, showed what’s possible and it’s all useful experience for the next time we’re fighting up near the front of the field.”
