Stroll became unwell during Qatar GP: THIS is his story!

Lance Stroll has seen better periods in his career. The Aston Martin Canadian crossed the line in ninth place at last weekend's Qatar Grand Prix, but due to track limit violations he was still given two time penalties. As a result, he dropped to outside the points in the final standings. A big disappointment, especially considering the trials Stroll had endured throughout the race.

Stroll was not the only driver to get out of his car exhausted. Logan Sargeant gave up early as he became unwell in his blood-hot Williams. Esteban Ocon said after the race that he threw up in his helmet. Stroll even lost consciousness briefly several times. As a result, he exceeded the track limits several times, he told among others GPblog.

"I finished 9th then got two track limit penalties, but I was passing out in the car," the Aston Martin driver said. "They painted the kerbs and made the track narrower so you can't even feel the kerbs, you're just trying to see it, but the problem is you can't see where you're going because you're passing out."

Stroll critical of FIA and F1

Stroll confessed to having palmed himself several times. How he managed that while the Canadian was busy driving a Formula One car? "I did," was really all the driver could remember about that, who went on to be critical of the FIA and Formula 1. After all, why drive in such weather conditions at all? "Maybe they like it as part of the show, I don't know.

"But yeah, I think it's a combination of things. It's the track limit thing, having to focus like that, the time of year we come here.  The temperature is too much and maybe there's some kind of ventilation system we have to look into for these kinds of hot races like Singapore and here as the cars are getting stiffer, and heavier. It's a smooth track but you can still feel the stiffness of the cars when you're riding over curbs and stuff."

'Result in Qatar frustrating'

So the fact that Stroll still saw the finish was actually a big miracle. He was annoyed by the way the stewards react when track limits are not honoured in such conditions. "20 laps ago. It's a joke that they're giving penalties for this, they don't understand what Formula 1 these days, what they're putting us through and giving us track limit penalties and they're making the track narrower and saying we can't go over kerbs because the tyres are failing if we do."

"I think the track limit thing is something that just has to be addressed because we've seen Austria, we've seen this weekend people getting penalties and it's not like we're gaining an advantage when we're going off the track by 3 mil and 60 laps of concentration, 65-70 degree temperatures in the car with 5-6.5 G. That's what the frustrating part is, we hustled out there, we drove a good race to finish 9th on the road and then 11th in the points with 2 penalties. It's really a frustrating result to not get anything out of it."

Singapore is also - as indicated - always hot. That Grand Prix is considered the toughest on the calendar. When asked if it was tougher in Qatar than Singapore, Stroll said, "A lot harder." Moreover, the air temperature made his seat very hot. "Yeah, it was hot. It was burning. I think it's the whole car that's just heating up, the whole engine, the chassis in these temperatures. Everything is getting really hot in the car. There's not much cooling", said Stroll, before probably going to an ice bath.