Penalties pile up as Stroll endures tough GT baptism

It was a long day and a tough baptism in GT racing for Lance Stroll on Saturday at the Circuit Paul Ricard.

Behind the wheel of the #18 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 run by Comtoyou Racing, Stroll teamed up with Roberto Merhi and Mari Boya for the GT World Challenge season opener – a six-hour race that quickly turned into a battle for survival.

Starting from P15, the trio never quite found clean air. Mistakes and misfortune stacked up: penalties for collisions, ignored blue flags, and repeated track limits violations snowballed into a staggering eight minutes and 25 seconds added to their race time.

Stroll himself accounted for a share of that, with penalties for both blue flags and track limits.

By the time the chequered flag fell under the floodlights, the #18 crew were classified 48th – a result that barely tells the full story of a bruising debut.

Yet beneath the setbacks, there were flashes of real promise. Stroll’s pace stood out, mixing it with some of the quickest drivers on the grid and hinting at untapped potential in GT machinery.

And while one side of the garage endured a nightmare, the other celebrated: Comtoyou’s #7 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 stormed to victory in dramatic fashion with Nicki Thiim, Marco Sørensen and Mattia Drudi.

For Stroll, Paul Ricard served as a reminder that even for a Grand Prix veteran, mastering the GT3 beast requires more than just raw speed – it demands total precision.