Lance Stroll boosted by clean practice running

Williams rookie Lance Stroll says his confidence has been boosted after a trouble-free day of practice for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as he placed sixth overall.

Stroll finished narrowly outside of the top 10 during Friday’s first session before moving up the order in second practice, finishing within eight-tenths of a second of pace setter Max Verstappen.

Stroll labelled his day as “very positive” as he received his first taste of the wall-lined Baku City Circuit.

“That was good fun, as I am enjoying the track,” said Stroll

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“The car was working well and we didn't have any issues, which was great.

“I felt the balance was good and now we just need to think overnight, improve on little bits, come back tomorrow and continue pushing.

“I think what was really positive was we didn’t have any issues, and nothing that got in the way of us running our programmes.

“What was really important for me on this kind of track was to get confidence on every lap and every run. Today we did exactly that and didn't lose any laps with problems or stuff going wrong.

“Things could be better, as this is still the first day of my first time here and we could improve for the qualifying run, but all in all I have to say it was a very positive day in many ways."

Williams team-mate Felipe Massa finished half a second further back in 11th place, and expressed optimism over the squad's prospects.

"I was happy with the car; unfortunately, I couldn’t really put together a lap on fresh tyres, because of the traffic and the yellow flags," he said.

"But, I was happy with the balance and I was happy with the long runs. The little mistakes that we made today weren’t a big problem, because we didn’t damage anything, which is always a positive thing here."