Lance Stroll produced the best lap of his career in wet and extremely challenging conditions to take a shock pole position for Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix, fending of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen as world champions Mercedes struggled…
A resurfaced Istanbul Park was proving tricky in dry conditions, and the challenge became even harder when the rain fell ahead of and during qualifying, with drivers struggling to find grip and keep the car pointing in the right direction.
Racing Point didn’t look too competitive in final practice and even as they moved through the first two segments of qualifying, they looked reasonable without being stellar, but when they bolted on intermediates in Q3, the cars came alive.
Sergio Perez was the first man to set the time sheets on fire with a blistering lap on the intermediate tyres, that comfortably put him top. That inspired Red Bull to ask Verstappen to abort his lap on wets, even though the first two sectors were quickest of all, in favour of changing his full wets for intermediate tyres.
Stroll headed in too and took the intermediates and after warming up the tyres, he pulled out an incredible lap to take the first pole position of his career, becoming the first Canadian to take P1 since Jacques Villeneuve in the 1997 European Grand Prix.
Reference: Formula1.com
