Lance Stroll’s race was compromised from the opening lap in Baku, as contact with Yuki Tsunoda’s RB caused him to puncture, forcing him to stop in the pits and dropping him to last place. But while the Canadian left Azerbaijan disappointed, Fernando Alonso scored good points for the team with a sixth place finish.
This was Alonso’s best result since he also finished sixth in Canada eight races ago. The Spaniard had to work hard in the early stages to stay ahead of Franco Colapinto, who was forced to apply an aggressive strategy by Williams, but from there he was able to pull away to finish as the best of the midfield.
“The pace today was better than expected, the degradation was better than expected,” said the Spaniard. “We stopped on lap 13 and continued to the end on a set of hard tyres with good pace.