The 2024 Sao Paulo GP weekend could not have gone any worse for Lance Stroll and Aston Martin. Both Stroll and teammate Fernando Alonso had crashed on separate occasions during qualifying at the wet Interlagos circuit. This left the team with a herculean task of fixing both cars before the start of the race, which was held hours later on Sunday, and while they managed to pull that off, the relief was only short-lived as Stroll beached his car during the formation lap itself.
The Canadian driver had locked up and spun off, after which his attempt to get back to the track via the gravel trap backfired. He got stuck, as Aston Martin mechanics watched on in disbelief. Stroll quickly became the butt of several jokes on social media, where fans mocked him for a completely avoidable goof-up.
Stroll has pled innocence, though, blaming his misfortunes on the brakes of his AMR24.“It was strange. As soon as I hit the brakes, the rear wheels locked and I was a passenger. I’ve never felt that in the car before, so maybe it was a brake problem. We’ll have to look into that,” Stroll said as per Motorsport Total.
Lance Stroll told media that it was a brake issue that led to the turn 4 crash on the formation lap: “It was strange. As soon as I hit the brakes, the rear wheels locked and I was a passenger.”
— Junaid #JB17 (@JunaidSamodien_) November 5, 2024
While Aston Martin did not reveal what exactly transpired, Mike Krack sided with Stroll’s assessment. The team principal said, “We will have to investigate this fully, but it was unexpected.”
Alonso did not have a pleasant outing either. Until his crash in qualifying, the Spaniard fancied his chances of fighting for the pole position. That led to him pushing the car beyond its capabilities and ending up in the barriers.
Alonso fought through pain to acknowledge his mechanics’ good work
As mentioned earlier, Aston Martin mechanics had a task cut out for them to put both cars back into shape for the race within a few hours. While they managed to achieve that, they failed to fix the car’s issue of bottoming out on big bumps. That left Alonso complaining about the physical toll it took on his body while racing.
The 43-year-old, however, decided to brave the pain and declared on the team radio that he would finish the race. The reason was simply to acknowledge the hard work the mechanics put in to get both cars in racing condition.
Fernando Alonso appeared to have tears in his eyes after struggling with pain from his car’s bouncing issues in Sao Paulo pic.twitter.com/dIbwEipzmJ
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) November 5, 2024
Alonso kept his promise but the extreme pain made it difficult for him to hop out of his car. Footage from Parc Ferme showed him getting out of the car with the help of his mechanics and hugging them afterward.
All in all, a forgettable weekend for the Silverstone-based outfit.
