Stroll: The car got loose, I corrected, we touched

Lance Stroll is enduring a trying season with Williams, nevertheless, he was fired up for his the Canadian Grand Prix, in Montreal his birthplace, but his afternoon was cruelly cut short when the Williams collided violently with the Toro Rosso of Brendon Hartley on the opening lap of the race.

Stroll made a strong start from 16th on the grid and was ahead of Hartley, who had started from 12th, by the exit of Turn 2 where the Toro Rosso driver went too wide.

As they powered out of Turn 4 the pair were nose to tail with Stroll ahead, but the Williams slithered and touched wheels with the Torro Rosso before Hartley got on the grass verge, lost control and rammed Stroll. The cars coming to a halt in Turn 6, both drivers out of the race.

Clearly disappointed, Stroll said afterwards, “First of all I am really disappointed for the fans. I have had a great welcome here for my home race and I wanted to put on a good show for them.”

“I had a good start, gained a few positions and got both McLarens, but I had some contact when I overtook them. Then I was side by side with Brendon going into turn five. The car got loose on me, I corrected it but there was not much room for both of us, and by the time I had corrected it we had touched.”

“It is not ideal, but that is racing, things like that happen on the first lap as we are close and side by side, so that is how it goes sometimes,” added Stroll who last year finished ninth in his first home grand prix and won the hearts of Canadian fans on the day.

Williams team chief Claire Williams backed her driver 19-year-old driver, “He’d made such a good start climbing up ahead of the McLarens as Lance always does, he always has a great first lap and then Brendon just seemed to come into the side of him while Lance was minding his own business, so it’s really disappointing.”

“We haven’t looked at [the replays] properly and I’d rather my engineers looked at it and then said what the cause was, but it doesn’t matter whose fault it was. Lance is out and we now only have one car in the race and that’s not what we needed,” lamented Williams.