Lance Stroll paid a lot of tuition fees on his GT3 debut – in the end, he and his two team-mates finished 48th out of the 49 cars classified
Lance Stroll actually wanted to use the GT World Challenge Europe season opener at Le Castellet at the weekend to take his mind off his current frustration in Formula 1. In the end, however, he found himself in the results list where he currently stands with Aston Martin in the premier class: right at the back.
Stroll and his two team-mates Mari Boya and ex-Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi finished the race at the Circuit Paul Ricard in 48th place out of 49 cars that made it into the classification. The gap to the winning sister car was a whopping 13 laps in the end.
This poor performance was partly due to the numerous penalties that the three drivers collected over the course of the six-hour race. Eight 30-second time penalties were handed out for disregarding blue flags alone.
Boya collected another stop-and-go penalty for a collision with another car and a further 220 penalty seconds for a total of three track limit infringements. The bottom line was a stop-and-go penalty and a further 7:40 penalty minutes.
Stroll’s pace was significantly better than the result suggests. He completed his fastest lap time at the very end of the race in 1:55.213 minutes. That was only around half a second slower than the fastest race lap (1:54.737).
Before the race, Stroll had explained: “In Formula 1, you don’t always have the chance to win. The competition here is very tough, but even if it’s our first time and we lack experience: If everything comes together – good set-up, good feeling – a win is possible.”
This was clearly not the case on Saturday. The next Formula 1 race for Stroll is scheduled for May 3 in Miami. Aston Martin is in eleventh and last place in the Constructors’ World Championship after the first three race weekends of the 2026 season.