Lance Stroll just tried and failed to copy Max Verstappen’s F1 escape

Lance Stroll attempted to get away from Aston Martin's F1 woes during this five-week break in the season. But his team failed miserably on his GT3 debut.

With there being no F1 races in April due to the cancellations of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, a number of F1 stars are trying to have a go at different racing series across the globe, with Max Verstappen recently confirming that he will be returning to the Nurburgring Nordschleife later in April.

And Stroll followed in Verstappen's GT3 footsteps this weekend, taking part in a six-hour race at the Circuit Paul Ricard, claiming beforehand that he was trying to win as it's not always possible to do so in F1.

However, much like the Aston Martin F1 team so far in 2026, Stroll's No.18 Aston Martin trio collapsed, finishing down in 48th place, second-last of the remaining runners in the overall standings.

That meant that, despite running in the pro-class, Stroll and his team-mates Mari Boya and Roberto Merhi finished behind Gold Cup, Silver Cup and Bronze Cup runners.

It was a far cry from Verstappen's GT3 debut last year, where he stormed to victory. In the recent NLS2 race, Verstappen did that again on track, banishing his Red Bull F1 woes, although him and his team were later disqualified for exceeding the maximum tyre usage.

READ MORE: Aston Martin F1 star swaps series after Max Verstappen talks

What happened on Lance Stroll's GT3 debut?

Stroll completed all of his running in the dark at the former home of the French Grand Prix, with his team-mates picking up the first two stints in the light and sunset conditions.

F2 driver Mari Boya completed the first stint, and immediately put his Comtoyou Racing team on the back foot, picking up a stop-and-go penalty within the first hour of the race.

That was for spinning round the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari of Sean Gelael. In fact, Boya and former F1 star Roberto Merhi picked up eight minutes worth of penalties during their stints, leaving Stroll in what has become a familiar position in 2026, at the back of the pack.

Stroll himself put in some impressive lap times in the dark at Circuit Paul Ricard, and was matching the top-10 runners during his stint, but the No.18 team were already far from race-winning contention, and they finished down in 48th when only 49 cars finished the race.

The trio in the Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 EVO only completed 163 laps across the six hours, 13 laps down on the front of the field.

Who won the Six Hours of Paul Ricard GT3 race?

It wasn't all bad for Aston Martin. The manufacturer had six cars running in the race, and the No.7 team of Mattia Drudi, Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim came home to take the victory.

That was after a late safety car wrecked the chances of the No.48 Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO trio of Lucas Auer, Luca Stolz and Maro Engel, who dominated large parts of the race.

As for Verstappen's GT3 racing team, the four-time world champion was not racing this time around, but his driver trio of Daniel Juncadella, Chris Lulham and Jules Gounon performed pretty well, finishing seventh in the pro-class after the team have moved up from the Gold Cup this year in their Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO.

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