Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team’s Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel will start the 2021 Italian Grand Prix in ninth and 11th after a combination of gaining ground in Monza’s F1 Sprint and a penalty at the front of the field.
Lance finished 10th on the road at the end of the 18-lap race, two places ahead of team-mate Sebastian, who will start Sunday’s race in 11th after Valtteri Bottas takes up his back-of-the-grid starting position.
Sebastian battled hard at the beginning of the race and exited the opening chicane in 11th after battling Lance and Perez. But AMR21’s lack of straight line speed caused Vettel to lose his position to Fernando Alonso.
Sebastian Vettel (P11) :
“It was a tricky race for me. I made a good start off the line, but I had nowhere to go in the packed field of cars so I locked up into Turn One.
“As a result, I had significant flat spots on the front left and right tyre, which created a lot of vibration. It became a race of damage limitation.
“We will start in a similar position in tomorrow’s race to where we did today. As we saw this afternoon, overtaking can be difficult because it is hard to follow the car in front, but we will see what we can do and try to fight for points.”
Lance Stroll (P9):
“That was a fun race today. It was not an easy decision to go for the soft tyre over the medium because, while it provides a better launch, degradation becomes a factor later on.
“We made a good start and gained some places in what was quite a tricky first chicane with all the tyre smoke and loose grass.
“I then had some good wheel-to-wheel racing with Checo [Perez] later on, too. He gave the position back to me a little later than I expected, which lost our DRS train and allowed [Fernando] Alonso to close in, but we were able to hold onto 10th.
“We will start tomorrow’s race in the mix for points and I think we can extract a little bit more pace from the car overnight.
“Overtaking is tricky here so strategy will be important, but I am looking forward to racing again tomorrow.”
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