Lance Stroll has struggled to reach the chequered flag in his Aston Martin so far this season.

He did get to the finish in Malaysia but it was a frustrating affair which prompted terse comments from the driver before he even left the grid to start the race.

Here are some of his exchanges with race engineer Gary Gannon on his way to 12th place in Sepang.

Team radio highlights from Stroll during the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia

Stroll was unhappy to discover the team hadn’t left his nose piece in his helmet before the race began:

Pre-start
Gannon	Radio check Lance, radio check.
Stroll	No nose piece in the helmet, well done. The only fucking thing to think about before the race when it starts raining.
Gannon	Yeah, understood, Lance. We’ll prep it in case there’s any red flag or anything. Okay, so two minutes ’til we go. So one and a half minutes. Everyone’s on inter. There will be multiple laps under the safety car.

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After starting the race on the medium compound tyres, Stroll quickly switched to intermediates as the conditions were too wet. On lap nine he was back into the pits for a set of hard tyres but they did not last as long as he hoped:

Lap: 26/56 STR: 1’43.782
Gannon	Happy to put energy in the tyres
Lap: 27/56 STR: 1’43.887
Stroll	The rears are just fucking done.
Gannon	Yup, yup. Even with that, you’re still catching the guys ahead and we’re getting close. You are quicker than Fernando in…
Lap: 28/56 STR: 1’50.702
Stroll	[Unclear]
Gannon	You will have one or two energy clicks available, but you’ll have to pay it back with K0s elsewhere.
Gannon	Box now, Lance, box now. Box now Lance, box now.
Stroll	Okay.
Gannon	Okay Lance, this is another new medium, it’ll be hotter to start, so it should have better grip. Sorry, another new hard, another hard.

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However within a few laps of changing tyres Stroll was struggling for rear grip. His team advised him on how his settings differed from his team mate’s:

Lap: 34/56 STR: 1’42.604
Stroll	[Unclear] how free the rear is.
Gannon	Two clicks of energy available, but you have to pay it back. Brake balance plus one for rear locking.
Lap: 35/56 STR: 1’43.597
Stroll	There’s no balance. My rear’s like broken, literally, I think, chopped off the rear wing.
Gannon	Understood, Lance. We’ll just get into good managing to get to the end. Entry seven, mid six. Entry seven, mid six. Try and close up the diff.
Stroll	From the exit of eight, look at the diff, what’s it doing?
Gannon	Yep, I’ll check.
Gannon	Eight, diff is locked on exit already. So Hulk…
Lap: 36/56 STR: 1’43.245
Stroll	So all the different [unclear] in the cars’ settings to us.
Gannon	Yeah checking, checking. He is plus three clicks brake balance forward right now.
Stroll	[[[Unhappy]]]Oh that’s useful information!
Gannon	He just did it in the last lap, Lance.
Gannon	He’s now back to plus two compared to us.
Gannon	They’re more open diff, entry five, mid four, and torque 11, so that’s probably not what we need. So let’s focus on Ocon ahead and Hulkenberg behind. Hulkenberg will have way higher deg, he’s on the soft.
Lap: 37/56 STR: 1’43.174
Stroll	Yeah, I feel like I’m on a soft right now.
Gannon	Yeah I understand.
Lap: 38/56 STR: 1’44.784
Gannon	K0 where you can, K0 you can and we’ll get back into it.
Stroll	Look in turbulent air there.
Gannon	Yeah i see it, I see, it’s terrible. We’ll just get the SOC back up and we’ll have another go. Hulkenberg’s tyre is faster now, but he’s still going to deg off later.

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Stroll grew increasingly exasperated with his situation and rejected his team’s instruction to manage his tyres in turn 12:

Lap: 39/56 STR: 1’43.558
Gannon	K0, four and seven, get the SOC back up, K0 four and seven.
Stroll	It’s just grain, the tyres are fucking grained.
Gannon	Yeah, I see it. And Jun says it’s shallow, shallow graining.
Lap: 40/56 STR: 1’43.502
Stroll	But why? I was managing so much!
Gannon	Yeah, I’m asking the same question.
Gannon	Keep doing sharp lift turn 12.
Stroll	‘No, I’m pushing flat-out, fuck this shit.
Lap: 41/56 STR: 1’43.236
Gannon	Energy if you need it, we think Ocon is boxing soon. Good job, K0 where you can. K0, turn 11.
Lap: 42/56 STR: 1’47.171
Gannon	Last lap, Lindblad 44.6.
Stroll	It’s just the worst experience ever.
Gannon	Keep using right toggle turn four, it will definitely help.

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Alexander Albon’s retirement triggered a Virtual Safety Car period which became a full Safety Car. Aston Martin used the opportunity to bring Stroll back into contention but he wasn’t able to join Alonso in the points:

Lap: 43/56 STR: 2’17.444
Stroll	Are we box?
Gannon	We’ll be 20 seconds behind if we box, so we’d have to catch all the way back up.
Stroll	Well, we’ll catch it back up, we’ll have fucking tyres, man.
Gannon	It’ll be a new soft. Do you think you need more front or just leave it? So we’re going to box now, Lance. We’re going box now.
Stroll	Just leave it. Just tyres.
Gannon	Copy that. Copy that, box now Lance, box, now.
Lap: 44/56 STR: 2’32.238
Gannon	So in terms of these tyres, we just need a sharp lift, five and six, otherwise you can push on them.
Stroll	I don’t have deltas man for the VSC. It’s not working properly.
Gannon	Slow down here, slow down here you’re a little too fast, slower.
Gannon	They’re jumping around everywhere.
Gannon	Yeah, I see it. I see. It goes to a different delta in the double yellow zone. So sync gears up to, yeah, you got the syncs. So just stay plus positive on Delta time. Still VSC. Lindblad boxed, so you’re in sync with him.
Stroll	So we should be able to catch up, right?
Gannon	Once it goes green, right now on VSC you just have to stay where you are.
Stroll	How many seconds behind the top cars, the cars in front we’re racing?
Gannon	22 seconds, 21 seconds to Hulkenberg and [unclear] is just in front of him, so 22 seconds.
Lap: 45/56 STR: 2’13.238
Gannon	Now you just have to obey the delta time, be close to zero, especially near pit entry, pit exit.
Stroll	Why, though?
Gannon	Why a safety car?
Stroll	No, why like close? No one, we’re not racing anyone at pit exit.
Gannon	Someone might box and put on a new tyre under the Safety Car. And if they have a slow stop, it just protects for that.

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Stroll’s race engineer shared his bemusement over his tyre performance during the race:

Lap: 55/56 STR: 1’41.463
Gannon	‘Coming around for the chequer. Okay, chequered flag, Lance, chequered flag. Run switch cool, run switch cool. Take pick-up, take pick-up. If you can, Lance it’s pink default B zero four OK, pink default, B zero four OK.
Lap: 56/56 STR:
Gannon	Okay, switches all good. Okay, Lance, good job. Sorry we didn’t have the right balance in the second hard.
Stroll	Yeah, what happened there? Just had nothing.
Gannon	Yeah, I just…
Stroll	No rear, no anything.
Gannon	Yeah. No, I don’t know because you did the saving that we wanted and it didn’t pan out. So obviously we’ll have to figure out what it is. Probably a long shot, but a couple of cars ahead under investigation. We’ll just keep our hopes up. I know it’s not super satisfying. But you drove well, Lance, and we’ll just keep working on getting us a better balance in the race. Lance just remember P1 then P0.
Gannon	Okay, Lance, remember P0 and switch off driver cooling. Switch off driver cooling, before you disconnect it. See you back here.

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