Stroll hit with post-race penalty, drops to eighth
Lance Stroll has been demoted to eighth position after stewards issued a post-race time penalty following the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
The Aston Martin driver endured an eventful race at Imola while making the most of favourable damp conditions to finish seventh at the chequered flag.
However, Stroll was judged to have breached regulations when overtaking AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly following a post-race investigation, resulting in a five-second penalty.
It was deemed Stroll left the track at the Tamburello chicane while attempting to overtaking Gasly earning a "a lasting advantage" from his off-track excursion.
As a result of the decision Stroll will drop a position to eighth behind Gasly, who inherits seventh in the official race results.
"The Stewards were informed after the race of an alleged breach. Having reviewed the video and heard from the drivers, the Stewards conclude that Car 18 was not able to complete his pass on car 10 at Turn 2/3 without leaving the track completely shortcutting turn 3 and returning on the track ahead of car 10," read a stewards report.
"He then failed to give the position back. In hearing from the drivers the Stewards accepted that car 18 was ahead of car 10 at the point he left the track, but that he was in that position because of a manoeuvre that he was not able to complete on the track given the wet conditions."
The penalty follows what proved to be a challenging race for the Canadian driver which began with a brake cooling issue before the start of the race.
He was then struck by a gear sync issue that affected gearshifts through the entirety of the 63- lap contest.
Speaking prior to the penalty being issued, Stroll thought he made the most of the conditions and was glad to reach the finish given the troubles encountered during the race.
"We took advantage of some opportunities today," said Stroll. "The weather was going to make things a bit interesting out there. The car was pretty well balanced this weekend but we are still lacking some pace if you look at the competition out there AlphaTauri, McLaren, they just look really quick so we have some work to do.
"It [the gear sync issue] was really killing me out there. I was getting all these poor shifts constantly throughout the race.
"I was happy we made it to the flag and managed to hold onto seventh as it was costing us a lot of lap time and quite worrying."
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