Lance Stroll sounds Aston Martin alarm as extent of struggles revealed

Lance Stroll has shared an insight into how much Aston Martin is struggling for pace in its current form.

The Silverstone-based squad has endured a challenging start to the new year, arriving late in Barcelona for the shakedown and only setting a handful of laps in comparison to most of the competition.

It took to the track once again in Bahrain this week, equipped with the new Honda power unit as the Japanese manufacturer makes a return to the sport.

However, its early pace has not left Stroll impressed, who suggested Aston Martin is four seconds slower than the front-running F1 teams.

“Right now we look like we're four seconds off the top teams, four and a half seconds,” Stroll told media inclduing RacingNews365.

"It's impossible to know what fuel loads and everything people are running, but now we need to try and find four seconds of performance, so we'll see."

With the sport at the start of a fresh regulation cycle, there is likely to be a lot of untapped potential from the cars.

As Aston Martin looks to make steps forward, Stroll was asked where it can find performance going forward. 

"I don't think it falls from the sky,” the Canadian replied. “You have to improve and find performance in the car, in the engine. 

“These are just usual things in F1, when you're behind the competition, you have to think about ways to extract more from the package you have and at the same time also improve.

"No one stands still in this business, everyone is trying to find performance in every way, every weekend, all the time.

“We're doing that, we're trying to extract more performance every day from the car and think also longer-term, bring upgrades on the PU side, on the chassis side.

"We will see in Australia where we line up and then we will see throughout the season how we progress. We're pushing as hard as we can, and that's all we can do right now."