Forced to retire during their last outing at Monza three weeks ago, the two single-seaters of the Aston Martin team not only reached the finish, but their drivers both scored points on Sunday at the Grand Prix of Singapore Formula 1.
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Ranked sixth (56 seconds behind the winner Sergio Pérez), Lance Stroll thus obtained his best result of the season to bring his harvest of points to 13. This comforting result also allows him to go from 18e at the 15e place in the cumulative driver standings.
His teammate Sebastian Vettel ended his career in eighth place, after putting up a courageous resistance to Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen even though he admitted defeat against the threat of the Dutchman at the end of the race.
A first in six months
This is the first time since the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, held last April in Italy, that the two Aston Martin team colors have managed to score points in the same event.
“It feels so good to get a sixth place. Especially since Seb [Vettel] also had a good day. We accumulated a good number of points and it’s a great reward for all the members of our team who work very hard,” exclaimed Stroll as he got out of the car.
The stable managed by his father, Lawrence, takes its total points to 37 and jumps from 9e at the 7e place in the constructors’ table ahead of AlphaTauri (34), Haas (34) and Williams (6).
Poor Latifi
As for Nicholas Latifi, he was talked about for the wrong reasons…again. Wanting to defend his 17e place in front of Zhou Guanyu, he packed his rival towards the wall in the seventh lap. Both were forced to retire after the clash.
“I didn’t see he was there. So I used my usual trajectory to approach the next bend. I didn’t know he was in the blind spot of my car, ”said the Canadian, who will lose his wheel with the Williams team at the end of the season.
Latifi admitted his responsibility and his behavior did not escape the eyes of the commissioners of the International Automobile Federation who imposed a penalty of five positions on the starting grid of the next Grand Prix, in Japan, next Sunday.
But that won’t change much for the Torontonian who is used to starting at the back of the grid.
Gasly soon to be confirmed?
Three bucket seats are still vacant for 2023, but the most coveted could be entrusted, unsurprisingly, to Frenchman Pierre Gasly who will therefore leave the AlphaTauri team to join his compatriot Esteban Ocon at Alpine.
The news would be confirmed over the next few days.
