Lance Stroll has admitted that he felt a Spanish Grand Prix podium was possible for Aston Martin after his first lap Formula 1 overtake on Lewis Hamilton. Starting from fifth on the grid, Stroll was up to fourth following damage for Lando Norris on the opening lap and dived past Hamilton at Turn 5 to run third. The Canadian held onto the position for eight laps until Hamilton scythed past at Turn 1, with Stroll eventually finishing sixth after George Russell and Sergio Perez both passed him. After beating teammate Fernando Alonso for the first time this season, Stroll explained how he had high hopes in the early stages.
Was a podium possible?
When asked if a podium will be possible at his home race in Canada, Stroll responded: "I would love to say yes to that question. "But I thought today it would be possible when we settled into third, but we just didn't have the pace, so if we put it all together and have as good pace as possible, and Mercedes do what they did today, and with Ferrari and Red Bull, it will be tough. "I've pulled that move [on Hamilton] off before around the outside there, so I know there was a gap, and figured Lewis would leave me a bit of space, which he did. "That put me in a good position going down into Turn 5 down the inside. "I was comfortably keeping the gap to Carlos and even pulling away from Lewis a little bit, but then five laps into the race, I just felt the tyres dropping off and [Mercedes] were able to just keep pushing on." "So we have to definitely work on some stuff and come back stronger."
Beating Alonso
For the first time as teammates, Stroll got the better over Alonso across the weekend, out-qualifying and out-racing the double World Champion in his home race. Late on, Alonso was close behind Stroll, but told the team he would not overtake as he elected to bank the sixth and seventh positions the two AMR23 machines held. "We respect each other as teammates and we want to score as many points as possible for the team," Stroll said of Alonso. "In those situations, it sucks to kind of have an accident over not-smallish points, but there's only two points between sixth and seventh kind of things, so I think at the end of the day, it's just more about bringing the cars back in one piece and scoring good points for the team. "All the guys work super hard at the factory deserve that too, they don't deserve cars coming back in in pieces after hard work."
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