Lance Stroll suffered a frustrating end to the Italian Grand Prix due to an extremely slow pit stop.
The Aston Martin driver was stationary for over 16 seconds when he pitted to switch from hard tyres to softs on lap 49.
First the front-left wheel changer struggled to re-fit the wheel nut. But once that was completed Stroll lingered for several seconds more as the team’s pit exit lights were blank.
The lights appeared to function correctly when Fernando Alonso made his pit stop earlier in the race. However Stroll never got a green signal.
Driving away without a signal could have risked a collision in the pits. From his position Stroll could see Alpine’s mechanics in front of him performing a pit stop for Pierre Gasly.
“The light’s not working,” Stroll told race engineer Gary Gannon. “The car’s okay, car’s okay,” Gannon reassured him as his crew gestured at Stroll to leave and the Aston Martin pulled away.
“There were lights, but it was not working in the pit stop,” Stroll added as he drove away. “Understood, copy that Lance. Four to go, just make up whatever time you can.”
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Stroll, who started 16th, ran one of the longest stints on hard tyres before pitting. He rose to eighth and was poised to gain a position from Esteban Ocon due to the Haas driver’s five-second time penalty, though Aston Martin did not think he was on course to finish in the points.
“The light at the pit stop, quite bad,” he told the team after the race. “Yeah, a big problem there so we’ll get on top of that,” Gannon replied. “Without the pit stop probably would have been P12.”
Other teams have also had problems with their pit exit lights this year. In Bahrain both Red Bull drivers suffered slow pit stops, losing around two to four seconds.
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