Stroll started seventh at the wild start of the race, but got up to third as Carlos Sainz bumped into Fernando Alonso and Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez went off course.
Yet, he lost some speed because of a sudden spin when leaving Turn 2, so Sainz had an opportunity to get next to him while they headed towards Turn 3. While going around the tighter inside part, Stroll slipped and ended up in the gravel.
Stroll thought he had missed his chance of getting in the top five and winning points, but then the race was delayed because of multiple accidents.
After going back to the pits and taking a break, Stroll got lucky because the FIA decided to return them to their original positions for one last lap with a safety car.
Since Gasly couldn’t continue and Sainz got a penalty, this meant that Stroll could take fourth place at the end of the race.
At Turn 3 with a few laps left, I was really upset. When defending from Carlos, I got a front-right lock and thought that I just lost my chance for making it to the podium. It would have been hard for me to fall asleep after that. When asked if ever had such a situation before where emotions changed constantly, I replied saying never with this much sadness and disappointment to finally being so happy with the result.
Stroll, like other drivers, noticed that the cold tyres made it hard to restart. He said, “It was really tough because the tyres were so cold. I could tell when turning 2 and then defending Carlos on the outside of Turn 3 and I hit the brake, but my front right locked up and went too fast.”
On Saturday, Charles Leclerc’s race ended suddenly due to a crash with another racer. He was stuck in the gravel trap but he wasn’t mad at the driver and instead said that they were lucky they could bring his car back safely. The other racer involved was Canadian called Stroll.
Stroll said he will buy a beer for the person he contacted while on the track, when asked by F1Flow.com. He explained it was an accident – there was no space between himself and two other drivers at the turn 3, so they bumped into each other and some damage might have been done but his car felt okay after that.
He said he thought they could have stopped the race sooner. He didn’t have enough fuel to go another lap, but it would have been nice for the fans if they got one last lap of real racing. That’s just how it goes sometimes, and they probably should have ended the race earlier instead of continuing until the flag was reached.
– The FIA discovered a crash (called Crashgate) at the Brazil 2008 Formula 1 finale, but were not able to act.
– Perez said that the low sun in Melbourne made driving in F1 laps difficult and dangerous.
– Alpine stated that Gasly has recovered well from his crash during the Australian Grand Prix, and was satisfied with his performance.