Racing Point reveals the sudden performativity decline of Lance Stroll during the Turkish Grand Prix, as he was set to get a podium at least.
Racing Point was almost set to go for a historic day in Turkey, as their driver Lance Stroll was leading the race for at least half of the laps, and his teammate Sergio Perez was right behind him.
But in the second part of the race, a pit-stop ordered by Racing Point’s management despite Stroll’s hesitance made Stroll concede his position against Perez.
While Perez remained on his tyres till the end of the race, Stroll suffered a huge setback by changing tyres, as the time wastage at the pitlane made Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton go in front of him.
Moreover, rapid graining of his intermediate tyres also made him lose pace, further relegating him to the 9th position. A major setback indeed.
By the look of it, Stroll was not seen to be blamed, as it definitely looked a technical or strategic fault, which made Stroll clueless against the challenges against him.
Now, a day later, Racing Point has revealed the possible reason behind this sudden downfall in his performance. As per Racing Point on social media, hardware damage massively affected Stroll.
UPDATE: During the team’s routine post-race car set down, we discovered damage to the underside of @lance_stroll’s front wing that was a significant contributor to the graining issues he experienced during his 2nd and 3rd stints on the intermediate tyres at the #TurkishGP.
What was revealed in further investigation?
Racing Point gave a detailed account of the problem handled by Stroll, it claimed that the Canadian driver reported poor tyre performance, significant understeer and graining from lap 17 onwards in the race. Pitting for a fresh set of intermediates on lap 36 failed to resolve the problem, with the graining becoming even more severe.
“One of the strakes on the underside of the front wing had come loose and lodged itself in such a way that the blockage caused a significant loss of front downforce. The resultant loss of front downforce contributed to increased levels of graining” claimed Racing Point.
“Data during the race confirmed there was a significant loss of front downforce – but with no visible damage to the top side of the front wing, combined with the low-grip conditions, it was difficult to confirm whether the data was correct.”
“It was only after the race, when the car returned to the garage, that the damage and blockage to the underside of the front wing were discovered.” the social media thread concluded.
