Stroll happy with Australia performance after pressure-filled weekend

Lance Stroll says he is very pleased to have scored points on his Racing Point debut after the level of pressure he found himself under. 

The Canadian moved from Williams in the winter following his father, Lawrence Stroll, led a consortium to take over and save the Force India team.

With many detractors claiming Stroll should not have gotten a race seat in 2019, the 20-year-old admitted he was very pleased to pick up points on his debut with his new team.

"I am really pleased with my race today – it has been a great day at the office," he told media after the race.

"It’s really nice to pick up some points on the first weekend of the season, but it wasn’t easy.

"It was a really challenging afternoon, chasing [Nico] Hulkenberg and [Kimi] Raikkonen ahead of me while also keeping [Daniil] Kvyat and [Pierre] Gasly behind me for most of the race.

"I was under a lot of pressure and it was very tight, but I am glad we managed to pick up two points.

"We were always planning to go long with our strategy, we were starting out of position so we knew the key was to make a good start and gain some places in the opening stages, which we did.

"After that, we had good pace and managed to hold off the cars behind us on softer tyres than ours. We saw today that it’s going to be really close in the middle of the grid, but we are definitely in the fight."