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Lance Stroll suffered a heavy crash during the final seconds of the first segment of qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix. The Canadian responded he was okay after the impact, but he will start last tomorrow.
The crash that ended Stroll’s day
Lance Stroll was fighting to get into the top 15 and gain promotion in the final run of Q1. He was sixteenth before starting his last flying lap. A few seconds later, he was down to last, as a lot of drivers were improving their times, since the condition of the track was improving very quickly.
On a new set of soft tyres, the Aston Martin driver was improving through the first two sectors of the Marina Bay Street Circuit. With the fight for promotion tough as ever though, he still needed to push as he approached the final corner.
There, the car initially understeered and its right wheels went wide, in the dirty part of the track outside the racing line. It then started sliding and the Canadian tried to correct it. The car then snapped and hit the TecPro barriers head on, at a very high speed.
— FD Media 2 (@FDMedia2_) September 16, 2023
After his impact, Stroll communicated with his race engineer, Ben Mitchell, despite understandably breathing heavily:
Stroll: Shoved it.
Mitchell: Copy mate. The car is safe, are you okay?
Stroll: Yeah, I’m okay.
The aftermath
The red flags were out very quickly, with both McLaren drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri having to take avoiding action since they were the first cars on the scene. Although they ran over a lot of debris, they were both able to avoid the wrecked Aston Martin.
A few of the drivers were caught out by the red flags that brought the session to an end, and as a result they were unable to complete their own flying laps. Valtteri Bottas, Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu were those eliminated, with the Finn and the Australian falling victim to the red flags.
Lance Stroll was obviously eliminated as well, as he ended the session in last position. Obviously, the magnitude of the impact will lead to an extensive repair which could include the replacement of the engine, the gearbox or even the entire chassis. Therefore, it would not be a surprise to see him start from the pitlane tomorrow.
After a long delay to clean up the track and fix the damaged barriers, the second segment of qualifying got underway about 35 minutes after the accident.
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