Aston Martin and Lance Stroll in particular had a race to forget at the 2026 F1 Singapore GP. Coming of a fairly decent race in Sepang, the night race at the Marina Bay track went from bad to worse for the Canadian driver.
The Sprint on Saturday was over fairly quickly after he failed to see Sergio Pérez overtaking him into Turn 16, putting himself in the barrier. During the GP proper, Stroll had to start from pitlane, only to retire in Lap 38 with a clutch issue.
Stroll unhappy about lack of drivability improvements
Prior to his DNF Stroll had a little detour when he went straight in Turn 14, as a result of drivability issues with his AMR26. Then a few moments later he was told to stop the car.
“Yeah, I mean we had some drivability issues during the race,” Stroll explained in the print media pen. “And then the clutch was too hot there at the end, so we had to stop.”
His only highlight came when he managed to catch and overtake Valtteri Bottas in the Cadillac on the second lap.
“Yeah, that was it really,” Stroll reacted to his highlight reel. “I mean not much other than that.”
Stroll was clear about whether the team has made any improvements on the drivability: “No improvement, not much. No, zero.”
He also had no clue what there needs to be done to improve the car and drivability, and referred to Aston Martin’s engine partner Honda.
When asked about the setup changes that forced him to start from pitlane, Stroll’s answer was brief, mostly balance-related adjustments.
“Just mechanical balance and all that stuff to try and improve things,” he said. “But similar to most of the weekend.”
Krack not disappointed, but admits lack of performance warrants investigation
Before the weekend there was a bit of hope for Aston Martin, as the Marina Bay circuit is not as power-limited as most F1 tracks, meaning the flaws of the Honda power unit would not be that noticable.
Stroll, however, was quite cynical when asked how painful the coming races are going to be, given the poor Singapore performance: “We’ll see, we’ll find out in a couple of weeks.”
Chief Trackside Officer Mike Krack was less downbeat in a print media session, despite the results being worse than perhaps anticipated.
“If we look [at] similar tracks in Budapest and Zandvoort. In Budapest one car was in Q2, in Zandvoort no car was in Q2. So, I think that is the reality on these kind of tracks.
“Now, I think, I must admit, I hope that we get at least one car out of Q1, but we didn’t manage, we were not quick enough and we need to look really why that was. I think we could have gone maybe a bit better, but much further up would not be realistic.”
But at the end Krack was not disappointed, as the performance of the car was where they expected it to be. However, he feels the team needs to analyse why the anticipated improvement hasn’t materialised.
“I’m not disappointed. No, I’m not disappointed because I think we are in the ballpark of where the car is. Sometimes you are a little bit more front, sometimes a bit more rear.
“So, it’s not about disappointment, I think we need to understand where we left maybe a bit of performance on the table. But, I think, you know, you mentioned it, we are on a circuit where there are less straight lines and we were not really so much better. So, that’s something we need to analyse.”
