Lance Stroll on the Aston Martin upgrade: “Would have been faster if it was a copy”


Lance Stroll on the Aston Martin upgrade: “Would have been faster if it was a copy”

Lance Stroll

After both Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel got kicked out in Q1, the driver made a joke about the car being a copy of Red Bull’s RB18. 

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The qualifying session for the Spanish Grand Prix took place, which saw many teams perform better than they had in the previous races due to the new upgrades that were fitted in the car. 

Red Bull had sidepod upgrades in their car, and so did Aston Martin, and somehow Aston Martin had a very similar looking sidepod to Red Bull, which had them labeled as the “green Red Bull,” similarly how they were named the “pink Mercedes” in 2020.

Watch: Did Aston Martin COPY Red Bull?

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FIA had urgently noted this upgrade on the AMR22, and the cars were investigated by the stewards under “reverse engineering,” interestingly enough, FIA cleared the car and stated that the upgrades in the car were completely legal. 

Red Bull were clearly unsatisfied with the statement, and they noted it “with interest.”

The real test of the cars was at the qualifying session, which took place in a heat as most teams which were backmarking came out way better after their upgrades, except for Aston Martin, who looked even worse after their upgrades. Lance Stroll was seemingly knocked out of Q1, and soon after Sebastian Vettel set a good lap which made it look like he had made it till Q2. But a better lap from Mick Schumacher in the Haas made Vettel go down and out of qualifying. He was seemingly shocked at this.

Also read: Aston Martin counter Red Bull’s stealing claims: “Don’t know what these accusations are”

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“We’d be 2 seconds faster if it was a copy,” jokes Stroll on the car. 

AMR22
Aston Martin

After the accusations on Aston Martin copying Red Bull, Lance Stroll joked about the car saying that if they really had copied Red Bull, they would have had their pace and would not have been knocked out in Q1. But the upgrades only made the pace of the cars worse. 

Aston Martin have a “different” car for this Grand Prix, apparently. 

“I hope we missed something, because at the last race we were in Q3 and now we’re out in Q1. We’re miles off the pace,” GPBlog quoted Stroll. 

 Post qualifying, Lance Stroll starts from 18th on the grid and Sebastian Vettel starts from 16th for the Spanish Grand Prix.

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Also read: Christian Horner confirms DRS issue ruined Max Verstappen’s final qualifying lap

Also read: “The car’s a lot better,” Lewis Hamilton delivers positive update about W13 for a ‘change’