“I am super excited to be back in front of a home crowd” – Lance Stroll

For Lance Stroll this weekend is a particularly special one, as the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team driver prepares for his first home Grand Prix since 2019.

The Canadian Grand Prix has been absent on the calendar for the past two-years, following the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Canadian driver will be hoping for better fortunes this weekend than he faced in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix last weekend, where he retired late on from sixteenth-place.

Stroll is “super excited” to be heading home this weekend, where he hopes to make some “solid progress”.

“Obviously I am super excited to be back in front of a home crowd and racing in Canada again! It is a shame we haven’t been to Montreal for the past couple of years, so there will be lots of work and preparation to get our car ready for the first practice sessions. As a team, we have made solid progress so far this season, so hopefully we can achieve a good result in front of my home crowd.” 

Circuit Gilles Villeneuve “a great venue for racing” – Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel had a super weekend in Azerbaijan, where fifth-place was a real possibility had it not been for running-off track early in the race. The German will be hoping to take his sixth-place finish at the Baku City Circuit, and turn it into motivation for this weekend at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Vettel’s last race at the venue ended in bad circumstances, after the four-time World Champion crossed the line in first but finished second. Vettel was awarded a five-second penalty in 2019 for forcing Lewis Hamilton into a wall, after rejoining ‘unsafely’.

The penalty saw the famous Parc Férme moment where Vettel swapped the Number One board, for his Number Two.

Whilst victory is very unlikely this weekend, Vettel is still hoping for a great Grand Prix.

“It is always nice to come back to a circuit after a couple of years away, as it makes for a bit of an extra challenge to find a nice rhythm around the track. But it’s definitely going to be worth the wait – the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a fantastic track, and a great venue for racing. The team has learned a lot from the past few races and the car is feeling better every week, so it will be good to see how everything translates in Montreal.”

Credit: Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team