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Lance Stroll’s GT3 Debut Unravels With Penalties to P48 at Paul Ricard

The bruising run highlighted how steep the switch from Formula 1 to GT3 endurance racing can be.

Overview

  • Stroll joined Comtoyou Racing’s No. 18 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 with Roberto Merhi and Mari Boya for the six-hour GT World Challenge Europe opener at Paul Ricard, qualifying 15th.
  • The race fell away early after Boya dropped places and a collision triggered a stop-and-go penalty that put the car deep in the pack.
  • Across the six hours, the crew received more than eight minutes of penalties for blue flag infringements and repeated track-limits breaches, with Stroll picking up several of those during his night stint.
  • Despite a top-10 lap on pace, Stroll reported limited night running before his stint and the car was classified 48th of 49 finishers after late mechanical trouble.
  • A sister Comtoyou Aston Martin won with Marco Sorensen, Nicki Thiim and Mattia Drudi, as an April break from F1 also drew star interest to GT racing, including Max Verstappen backing a team that finished in the top 10.