Lance Stroll endures penalty-hit GT World Challenge debut

Aston Martin snatched a dramatic late victory in the GT World Challenge season opener at Paul Ricard.

But it was the number ‘7’ of Nicki Thiim, Marco Sørensen and Mattia Drudi that stormed into P1 with nine minutes remaining, not Lance Stroll’s team in the number 18 as the latter accrued over eight minutes of penalties.

Lance Stroll GT3 debut ends in penalties as Aston Martin wins

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Comtoyou Racing took the win at the French circuit after taking the lead off the dominant #48 Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter with nine minutes remaining in the six-hour race.

The 48 dominated the race, but a late Safety Car on Saturday night gave the #7 Aston Martin a glimmer of hope.

Thiim was behind the wheel and overtook several lapped cars to close in on the rear of Lucas Auer. A small error from Auer allowed Thiim to dive past with nine minutes remaining in the race to take the win for the Comtoyou team.

As for Formula 1 driver Stroll, he was in the second Comtoyou entry in the number ’18’ along with former Manor F1 driver Roberto Merhi and Aston Martin Academy prospect Mari Boya.

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With the Formula 1 action paused in April, Stroll decided to switch things up by making his GT3 debut.

Stroll has prior experience of sports car racing, having competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2016 and 2018. This weekend, though, was the Canadian racer’s maiden voyage into GT3 competition.

Behind the wheel of the #18 with Merhi and Boya, the teammates racked up eight minutes and 25 seconds’ worth of penalties that meant they finished P15 on the night.

Boya caused a collision that resulted in a stop-and-go penalty, while Stroll was penalised for blue flags and exceeding track limits.

All in all, the penalties added up to eight minutes and 25 seconds.

Stroll and his teammates qualified P11 in their class for the race with the Aston Martin F1 driver setting a fastest lap overall of a 1:54.472, just five thousandths slower than the time set by one of his teammate’s Merhi.

Speaking about the event before the race, Stroll revealed that talks with Max Verstappen, who will contest the Nürburgring 24 Hours in May, had enticed him to take part in the season-opening GT event.

“We talked about whom to contact, and since he’s already involved in GT racing, we discussed it a bit,” said Stroll.

“Everyone enjoys driving GT3 cars – they’re fun.”

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