Nico Rosberg pulls no punches and rips apart Lance Stroll’s Qatar GP ‘excuse’
Max Verstappen wins third consecutive Formula One world championship
Nico Rosberg had little time for the excuses of Lance Stroll after the Aston Martin driver lost his points at the Qatar Grand Prix due to a track limits penalty. The 24-year-old finished ninth on the circuit but was bumped out of the scoring positions to 11th after incurring a time penalty he picked up for exceeding track limits. The limits had been tightened by FIA after Pirelli raised concerns about their tyres enduring the harsh Lusail kerbing.
Stroll was one of a handful of drivers to pick up a penalty and the Canadian couldn’t hide his frustration after missing out on a points finish.
Speaking to reporters after the race, he said: “It’s ridiculous. I mean, these temperatures… everything goes blurry. The last 25-30 laps were just blurry in the high-speed corners, with blood pressure dropping, and just passing out basically in the car in the high-speed corners with high G-forces.
“Then the kerbs were painted because they were worried about punctures with these high-loaded G-force corners and the tyres, and they painted the kerbs to make the track even narrower.
“So you’re relying just on your visual reference to the outside of the track and what that is. So you can’t really see anything because you’re just fading as you’re going through those corners.”
However former world champion Rosberg was in no mood to entertain Stroll’s excuses. The 38-year-old wasn’t prepared to buy his reasoning for exceeding the track limits on so many occasions, pointing out that many other drivers had coped with the limits just fine.
Rosberg told Sky F1: “I think it was a decent race, perhaps for him, but still an extreme way of stating it that he says the last 25 laps he’s almost passing out in those high-speed corners.
“I mean, I believe him that is just crazy, crazy difficult out there. But, nevertheless, all the other drivers managed to do without penalties – or many of them – especially the best ones out there today.
“So it’s not really an excuse, I think, to still have so many mistakes to get the penalties that he did.”
Stroll was not alone in his complaints about the Qatar heat, however, with several drivers needing medical attention for either dehydration or heat exhaustion straight after the race.
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Williams driver Logan Sergeant retired due to being unable to withstand the conditions whilst Esteban Ocon of Alpine threw up in his helmet.
Rosberg revealed that when he was racing he had prepared for extreme conditions by using a simulator.
He said: “In my day, we did a test with a doctor with a device. We did a simulation of a race like that in those temperatures and it was deemed that it was not a risk to one’s health.
“Of course, it was an extreme exhaustion. It was extremely difficult. So I wonder, I mean, they would need to analyse it. Certainly, it was borderline.
“They lost like three kilos, so six pounds of body weight in those one hour and 45 minutes that they were racing. That’s extreme, it’s like 5% of your body weight, which really really is so tough and it’s such a torture.”
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