Lance Stroll experienced a disastrous start to the Las Vegas Grand Prix due to a broken radio in his Aston Martin. As early as the first lap, the Canadian lost the ability to communicate with his team. The radio silence painfully impacted his race.
Chaos at the first pit stop
From his starting position at P18, Stroll was able to hear the instructions of his engineer, Ben Michell, but then the radio silence began. As the medium tires quickly deteriorated due to extreme degradation, he tried to signal that he needed to pit using the ‘pit confirm’ button. However, it seemed that the team did not receive this message.
At his unexpected pit stop in lap nine, no mechanics were ready with hard tires, resulting in a loss of valuable time. Stroll succinctly described the situation afterwards: “No radio from lap one. No communication. I tried to let them know I was coming in using the pit confirm button, but that didn’t work either.”
Missed opportunity for a better result
According to Stroll, the broken radio alone cost him 20 seconds during the pit stop. “We eventually finished 10 seconds behind the two drivers in front of us. Without those problems, P12 might have been possible, or even a few places higher, but points were definitely out of the question,” he admitted. The Canadian explained that the medium tires performed worse than the team had expected. The original plan was to drive longer, but due to the rapid wear, Stroll wanted to switch to the hard tires earlier. “It was almost impossible to make that clear to the team.”
Aston Martin team boss Mike Krack indicated that the team was eventually able to manage the race via the pit board. At Stroll’s second pit stop, everything went without a hitch, but by then the Canadian had already lost valuable time.
