Aston Martin Team Principal Mike Krack believes saving two sets of the Hard tyre for the Las Vegas Grand Prix was the “key” to Lance Stroll’s comeback in the race.
Having locked out the second row of the grid in Brazil, Aston Martin struggled in qualifying at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, with Stroll exiting in Q2 and Fernando Alonso 10th.
However, Stroll capitalised on the chaos that ensued at Turn 1 to gain 10 places before utilising an early Virtual Safety Car period to abandon his starting Soft tyre for the Hard.
Once the drivers ahead made their opening pit stop Stroll was elevated up to third, with Aston Martin then taking advantage of a Safety Car on Lap 25 to pit both of its drivers.
While Alonso could only salvage ninth place from an early spin, Stroll dispatched Pierre Gasly and then profited from George Russell’s time penalty to claim a stellar fifth.
Although he admits Stroll got fortunate, Krack contends that avoiding using an additional set of the Hard tyre in practice was the most vital aspect of his turnaround.
“It was a good race but it was also a good race two weeks ago,” Krack said in reference to Stroll’s climb. “Yeah, it was quite good.
“I think the key today was to have a good understanding of the tyres and the strategy. It was always the plan to do something we did there. Now obviously there was a bit of luck involved in the beginning to make a lot of positions.
“But I think all in all, the key today when you look at who had how many Hards left and who didn’t, I think you see in the ranking that the one-stop did not work with the exception of Esteban [Ocon]. I think everybody who did not have two [Hards] went out with one.”
Stroll’s hopes of banking a points finish in Vegas were dented by receiving a five-place grid drop for overtaking under yellow flags in FP3 that relegated him to the back row.
Despite immediately progressing up to ninth from the outset, Stroll dismissed that pitting under the VSC was the moment when his race prospects began to brighten up.
“I think a lot of guys kind of pitted under the Virtual Safety Car at the beginning or the Safety Car. So, I don’t think that’s when the race came to us,” Stroll explained.
“I think, you know, lap one was really good, gained like 10 positions with a lot of guys going wide in turn one and then from there this really good pace in the car today. I felt like we were kind of on the front foot attacking through the race, which was fun.”
Despite ending a torrid run of six successive Q1 eliminations with third place at Interlagos, Stroll could only wind up 14th fastest on Friday night’s qualifying session in Vegas.
Asked to describe the contrast between the feeling of the AMR23 in qualifying compared to in race trim, Stroll said: “Not super different, but I think we’ve just generally been on more of a Sunday car, this year compared to Saturdays, which I think it’s been a trend.
“So yesterday [was] tricky to fight with some cars like Haas and Alpine and even Alfa Romeo and then today just a way quicker car than them. So that’s been a bit of a trend I think throughout the year, just a very good car on Sunday and a little bit sometimes a good car on Saturday, but generally sometimes a little bit more difficult on Saturday and they’re much better on Sunday. So I felt like that was again the case today.”
Aside from being blighted by technical problems, Stroll had also been hampered by Aston Martin encountering trouble with its upgrade package introduced last month.
But following two consecutive fifth-place finishes, Krack is convinced that Stroll has rebuilt his confidence in recent rounds.
Expanding on the reasons for Stroll’s late-season momentum, Krack said: “Well, what I think happened is he is building the confidence. You know, the results are coming and then you get more confident. He was out in Q2 yesterday but it was not a drama. He builds this confidence [through] these things that you cannot measure really.
“He managed the tyres really well today, passed some people so I think all in all, when you put all of this together, the results come.”
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