Stroll becomes first driver to reach 100 Q1 eliminations as Aston Martin struggle at Monza

Lance Stroll became the first driver in Formula 1 history to be eliminated in Q1 on 100 separate occasions, reaching the grim milestone at Saturday’s qualifying session for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The Aston Martin driver qualified last on the grid, ending the session just under a tenth of a second behind team-mate Fernando Alonso, who was himself unable to complete a final flying lap.

The record stretches back to the three-part qualifying system’s introduction in 2006, meaning no driver across nearly two decades of the format has been dropped in the opening segment as frequently as Stroll. His first Q1 elimination came at the very start of his career — the 2017 Australian Grand Prix with Williams, where he was nine-tenths shy of the cut — though he quickly showed his potential by reaching Q3 the following weekend in Shanghai.

Stroll’s career has contained genuine highlights. He claimed pole position at the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix, exploiting wet conditions with Racing Point’s competitive RP20, and did not suffer a single Q1 elimination that entire season. He also took a podium at the chaotic 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix and scored his maiden points at his home race in Montreal that same year.

However, the broader trend has moved firmly in the other direction. His 2018 season with a struggling Williams saw him drop out in Q1 on 15 occasions alone, and the current campaign with Aston Martin has been similarly bleak — he has not progressed beyond Q1 once this year.

The Monza weekend laid bare the scale of Aston Martin’s performance deficit. Despite arriving with an updated Honda powertrain introduced at Zandvoort and further upgrades built on their Hungary overhaul, the AMR26 was consistently around 20 km/h slower than the Mercedes cars through the speed traps, contributing to a 2.6-second gap to Pierre Gasly’s Alpine across the full lap in Q1.

Stroll was characteristically blunt when assessing the situation. “It was what we expected with the engine,” he said. “We’re three seconds off, so we’re not going to stay with the pack tomorrow.” His comments offered little optimism for Sunday’s race, indicating Aston Martin’s two cars would be well adrift of the field throughout.