Lance Stroll sent a concerning message to his Aston Martin team during practice on Friday which raised questions over his fitness ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Canadian is attempting to complete the race weekend despite suffering an injury during pre-season training. He missed testing after crashing while riding a bicycle in Spain – an injury which required surgery to fix.
Reserve driver Felipe Drugovich filled in for Stroll during testing and is on standby in Bahrain this weekend in case he is needed. Stroll intends to race, but a worrying message sent during the second practice session of Friday indicated that he could struggle to do so.
He was told by his race engineer: "Lance, we need to compromise Turn 1 and have a better line in Turn 2." He was being asked to change the way he approached the first two corners of the circuit in order to improve his lap times.
But Stroll replied with exasperation: "I can't man, I can't, with the hands." Cameras mounted on the Canadian's car also showed that, at times during the session, he was steering with only his left hand on the wheel – another sign that he was feeling pain which was affecting his driving.
The message prompted concern on social media from fans, who are unsure that Stroll should be in the car. @UnitedHeath wrote: "Shouldn't be racing if he isn't fully fit." And @JuceeRob asked: "Why is he driving the car if he can't do certain tasks? Should be resting the first weekend and come back for week #2."
In better news for Aston Martin, Fernando Alonso caused a bit of a stir by setting the fastest time of that second practice session. The AMR23 looked very strong in pre-season testing and that has continued into the first race weekend of the season.
The Spaniard told Sky Sports after the session: "It's another step in the direction and the car still feels good. But we need to wait and see. At the moment, there is still not much focus on times because we have to improve a few things on the car in terms of setup.
"Also, it's still very early days. We're still changing a lot of things and trying to reinforce the team in every area, not only on the car performance. It's going to be a very interesting process, but the team is learning every day."
