ASTON GETS OFF THE MARK FOR 2022

Aston Martin ended the

Emilia Romagna GP weekend with its first points of the

2022 season, after Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll finished eighth and 10th respectively.

Vettel qualified ninth for the sprint, aided by the delay from Carlos Sainz’s Q2 crash that meant others, including the two Mercedes drivers, could not improve. He slipped back to 13th in the sprint. But this meant he started on the grippy, racing line side for the main race and was a big gainer at the start.

He held eighth for the rest of the first stint after Fernando Alonso went backwards and out, and was then the second driver to stop for slicks, aiding his cause further. With fresher tyres on the effective undercut, he climbed to seventh. That reverted to eighth after Yuki Tsunoda chased him down and passed late on.

Vettel said his result was

“like a victory” for Aston, which also scored with Stroll after the Canadian too had an excellent start and then ran in the final points-paying position for most of the race.

He held off Esteban Ocon at the end and later theorised that the cooler conditions all weekend compared to the previous flyaway races “suited us a little bit better”, since the Aston hadn’t been massively updated since the previous race in Australia.