Stroll aiming to keep calm and carry on in Australia

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Lance Stroll says he's learned a valuable lesson from pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The 18-year-old Canadian had a torrid start in the first week in Spain with several incidents. Fortunately he was able to shrug that off, and had better time of it in the second week.

Stroll indicated that he was going to use the experience to guide him once he gets to Australia.

"It was obviously a frustrating week last week with the couple of things that happened," he admitted. "But we had a good week this week.

"We got all our running in – long runs, short runs, and all compounds of tyres – so it was good.

By the time he had his last outing in the car on Friday, Stroll was clearly learning to love every minute.

"A good day today to end a good week. It was a fun day and I got to put the ultrasofts on and really feel the grip. It was awesome.

"I was on a mega lap on them but I went long into Turn 13, which cost me everything and I lost my lap," he recalled. "I was eight tenths up and it was looking good, but anyway it’s testing.

Massa sticks up for rookie Stroll

"It’s all positive stuff," he added.

Whatever challenges Stroll faced in testing will only be an order of magnitude greater in Melbourne. Keeping a level head is top of the rookie's agenda.

"I think we still have to stay calm ahead of Australia and just do our work and then see where we are," he said.

"I don't think we really need to set an objective, as in numbers and stuff, we just need to do our work and see where we are.

"It’s a new track for me as I have never been there, but I’m going to take it step-by-step and run-by-run."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.