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Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll had a difficult outing at the last race weekend in Monza. While Fernando Alonso made Q3, the Canadian driver was eliminated in Q1. With the Azerbaijan GP on the horizon and the drivers arriving in Baku for the race, Stroll came out and leaked back on the good memories around the streets of Baku.
Lance Stroll made his F1 debut with Williams in 2017 and had a torrent start with three retirements in the first few races, followed by three finishes outside the points. However, the Canadian driver was able to take his first F1 podium at the eighth round of the 2017 season, i.e., the Azerbaijan GP.
On the final lap of the 2017 Baku GP, Valtteri Bottas followed Lance Stroll and made the overtake on the start-finish straight, taking P2 away from Stroll by just 0.1 seconds. The Azerbaijan podium was one of the three podiums scored by the Aston Martin driver in his F1 career so far.
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As Lance Stroll sat down with Tom Clarkson for the Thursday press conference, the Aston Martin driver was questioned whether he had a favorite track, and if Azerbaijan qualified as one that made the list, as Stroll had done well around the venue.
“Yeah, good memories, for sure, it's a place I always enjoy coming back to, like Kimi said, it's a challenging track, it has, you know, some tricky braking zones, so just finding the limit, you know, in the braking zones is always a challenge coming here, but yeah, it's fun, you got to get close to the walls, and it's one of those places that's fun to drive when it all comes together,” replied Lance Stroll
Out of the seven races that Stroll has raced around the streets of Baku, he's finished four inside the points and faced either a mechanical issue or an accident during the three races that he finished outside the points.
Lance Stroll details the expectations from Aston Martin at the Azerbaijan GP: “I don't know”
Aston Martin had a weekend to forget at the Italian GP, where the strategy of starting Lance Stroll on hard tyres and going long put him at the back of the grid when the pitstop was made, whereas Fernando Alonso retired from the race after a front right suspension failure.
Stroll was asked about his expectations for the AMR25 going into the Azerbaijan GP, to which he insisted that the tight midfield makes it hard to predict. He said,
“I don't know, we'll see, you know, it's very tight in the midfield, there's not a lot in it between the teams, so yeah, we'll see how we go this week.”
Aston Martin has fared well around the streets of Baku in the past, with Sebastian Vettel taking the Silverstone-based team's first F1 podium in 2021. However, the current package has a lot of drag, which won't be helpful down the long main straight.
