Lance Stroll says reverting to the older specification FW41 front wing hurt his race at the Hungarian Grand Prix, as Williams’ difficult season continued.
Stroll made it through to Q2 during Saturday’s dry/wet qualifying session but spun through Turn 9 and damaged the new front wing that Williams has recently introduced.
Due to a lack of spare parts Williams had to revert to the older specification, meaning Stroll’s FW41 had to be withdrawn from parc ferme – a breach of the regulations.
Stroll was therefore forced to start from the pit lane, from where he came home a twice-lapped 17th, within a second of team-mate Sergey Sirotkin.
“We don’t have spare parts, started from the pit lane, bit of a shame,” said Stroll.
“We had the old front wing on which we hadn’t run all weekend for a couple of races now and definitely felt the loss in performance.
“The car felt like it wasn't cooperating as well as it has been since we got the new front wing.
“We went on a different strategy to Sergey and tried to pick up the pace at the end of the race with the qualifying tyres, but there just weren't enough laps left. It was one of those races.”
Sirotkin remains the only driver on the grid yet to score a point but the Russian was eager to emphasise the positives, in spite of Williams’ lowly placement.
“I think we can say we have finished the first half of the year on a high,” he asserted.
“Obviously, it’s not that visible in the results but, being realistic from where we started, the strategy we had and dealing with blue flags we can be happy with how we performed.
“There’s still some room for improvement, which we will analyse and correct throughout the summer break, but we can take quite a lot of positives from this race and all of us can take a deserved rest.”
Williams continues to prop up the 10-team Constructors’ Championship, 14 points behind Sauber.
