Stroll's Turkish GP struggles due to damage to front wing

After his first pole position ever, Lance Stroll also seemed to be well on his way to his first victory in the first part of the race. However, in the second part of the race, after his second pit stop, the Canadian dropped back down the field and finally crossed the finish line in ninth place.

Intermediates

On the wet tyres Stroll didn't seem to have any problems, but on the intermediates, things went downhill. Lance reported poor tyre performance, significant understeer and graining," said Racing Point on Twitter. The team brought Stroll in for a new set of intermediates in the hope of solving the problem. "It only got worse."

Damage to the front wing

After the race, damage to the front wing was discovered, which may explain Stroll's problems. "We discovered damage to the underside of Lance's front wing, which could not be seen from the outside. This resulted in a significant loss of downforce at the front of the car. The loss of frontal downforce in turn contributed to the increase in graining."

During the race there was also a suspicion that something was wrong with the car. "Data during the race confirmed there was a significant loss of front downforce - but with no visible damage to the top side of the front wing, combined with the low-grip conditions, it was difficult to confirm whether the data was correct," said Racing Point.

UPDATE: During the team's routine post-race car set down, we discovered damage to the underside of @lance_stroll 's front wing that was a significant contributor to the graining issues he experienced during his 2nd and 3rd stints on the intermediate tires at the # TurkishGP . [1/5]

- BWT Racing Point F1 Team (@ RacingPointF1) November 16, 2020