Lance Stroll delivers curt response when quizzed on trainer situation

Lance Stroll appears to be done with being asked about his shove on his trainer in Qatar, or so it seems with his rather curt response in Austin.

Failing to make it out of Q1 for the Qatar Grand Prix, his third Q1 exit in as many race weekends, Stroll lost his composure after his car was pulled into the garage.

Throwing his steering wheel onto the nose of the car, he headed towards the exit at the back of the garage and pushed his trainer Henry Howe out of his way.

Lance Stroll’s curt ‘yes and yes’

That earned him a written warning from the FIA while former drivers questioned whether he had fallen out of love with Formula 1.

Asked he was asked about that in the driver press conference for the United States GP weekend, whether he had ‘patched things up’ with Howe, and if he still ‘enjoyed being in F1’.

He replied: “Yes and yes.”

That, though, was just one of the Canadian’s rather short answers in a press conference in which he wasn’t saying much about anything.

What can we expect from Aston Martin in Austin? “We have a few bits coming into the car this weekend. So I hope we can be competitive.”

Is he feeling the heat from McLaren, who are just 11 points behind Aston Martin in the championship? “Yeah, they’re quick so not ideal. We’ll see what we can do from now until the end of the year.”

As well as “yeah” his “ass was on fire” in Qatar because “yeah, it was hot for sure. I think we all felt it.”

But the good news is Stroll, who revealed after the Qatar race that he had been passing out in the car, is back to feeling “100% again” although it did take him a “good few days” to recover.

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Stroll’s frustrations in Qatar qualifying were the culmination of a season in which he has been thrashed by his new team-mate Fernando Alonso.

The Spaniard has seven podiums and 183 points while Stroll has none and 47 points.

Team boss Mike Krack has blamed the upgrades for the AMR23, saying Aston Martin have “suspicions and indications” about where it had gone wrong for Stroll.

Vowing to make “changes” to assist the driver, his team-mate Alonso says he’s also there to help.

Undoubtedly finding life in the AMR23 a lot easier than his team-mate has been, the double World Champion said as per Total Motorsport: “We are all helping him and [I am] trying to do my best where if I find something in the car and feel more comfortable [I can share].

“We are in the same room for debriefs and I’m trying to remember what could be a help in the past with set up or whatever.

“We are working closely together to find the best result for the team and to score points with both cars. I think he’s been extremely unlucky in some situations. I don’t think the speed and pace are that far away when things are normal.

“All this is just hitting his confidence, it’s like in football when you win matches everything goes perfectly and when you lose you get stressed.

“We need a clean weekend and hopefully this one is just the starting point.”

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