F1 News: Lance Stroll Reveals Aston Martin Disaster In Las Vegas Grand Prix

Saajan Jogia | 2 Hours Ago

Nov 22, 2024; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team driver Lance Stroll of Canada (18) drives during practice for the Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024 at the Las Vegas Circuit. Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images / Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll has opened up on his pit stop disaster during the Las Vegas Grand Prix, where he suffered a radio breakdown throughout the race, meaning his team didn't know when he was coming into the pit and vice versa. Unfortunately, he went into the pits on Lap 9 and saw his team wasn't ready to service the car.

What seemed like a communication error at first on the team's part actually turned out to be a technical problem faced by the Silverstone outfit. The Canadian driver reported that there was no radio communication from the first lap, meaning there was no exchange of information with his race engineer, Ben Michell. Making matters worse was the prominent graining issue with the tires on the street circuit, which pushed him to pit early but his team had no clue that he was coming in.

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack eventually revealed that the squad ultimately determined it could manage the race using the pit board. While Stroll’s second pit stop proceeded smoothly, the earlier time lost during the race ultimately relegated him to a 15th-place finish. Speaking to the media, Stroll said:

"Difficult race, no radio from lap one.

"No communication. That made it difficult with the pitstop and trying to tell them that I was coming with the pit confirm. But the message didn't go through."

When he was asked how bad was the pit stop, he said:

"20 seconds – a lot.

"It's the same in the car.

"There's no problem from the car, it's just the strategy and the pitstops.

"I knew that the medium tyre was dying a lot at the beginning of the race and I wanted to come in and go as quickly as possible on the hard tyre.

"But then our plan was to go longer on the medium tyre before the race, but the medium was worse than we expected, so I was trying to communicate that and tell them that I was coming in earlier.

"But then it was kind of impossible to communicate other than the pit confirm. So, just one of those races."

Sky Sports F1's Ted Kravitz confirmed after the race that Stroll was facing a radio problem and his team had to resort to the old-fashioned way of communicating with him. He said:

“I don’t know whether the transmission didn’t work. I am sure that the helmet was fine.

“But Lance didn’t have radio for the whole race.

“That was a bit of a problem when you consider that he started down the grid, and needed to get back.

“They had to communicate with Lance with the old way - with a pit board, to tell him when to come in and change various buttons that they needed him to change.”