Aston Martin star Lance Stroll's team handed staggering 12 penalties during F1 break

Stroll pursing his lips with Aston Martin-themed black and green background — Photo: © IMAGO

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Lance Stroll team handed staggering 12 penalties during F1 break

Lance Stroll and his team finished in P48

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Sunday 12 April 2026 15:27 Updated: 21:33

Aston Martin star Lance Stroll and his team were hit with 12 penalties during a racing venture outside of F1.

Stroll took to the Circuit Paul Ricard in France this weekend for a six-hour endurance race in what was his GT3 debut.

Desperate to escape the disaster that has been his and Aston Martin's F1 season so far, Stroll raced in the No.18 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 EVO alongside former F1 star Roberto Merhi and F2 driver Mari Boya.

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But the event did not go to plan for Stroll, and the No.18 team were eventually classified in 48th place after retiring late on.

However, the team failed to run the final 15 minutes due to a shifting issue, meaning although they were classified finishers, the car was forced to retire.

Stroll's pace was otherwise strong, going third fastest in the final stint and setting the eighth fastest lap overall - however his team were hit with 12 penalites.

Stroll's penalty-hit GT3 race

Stroll and his team started the race from 15th, with Boya taking on the first stint. The team lost places off the line, and Boya was running down in 18th when the first of 12 penalties was dished out to the No.18 car.

Boya spun round the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari of Sean Gelael within the first hour of the race, and was hit with a stop-and-go penalty which dropped the team right down outside the top 25.

With only 25 Pro Cup teams in the 58-car field, it was kind of expected that Stroll and co would finish in the top 25, or at least the top 30, with a few of the Gold Cup teams clearly set to be in the mix for overall race wins as the GT World Challenge Europe season progresses.

But when Merhi jumped in the car for the sunset stint, it was pretty clear that a top-25 finish was not going to be achievable.

Merhi received no fewer than six blue flag violations during his stint, with those all worth 30 seconds each and so amounting to a five-minute time penalty.

The Spanish racer - who competed in the 2015 F1 season with Marussia - also picked up two time penalties for track limit infringements, with the first one being worth 30 seconds, and the second one 75 seconds.

Stroll then took over for a two-hour stint in the dark to finish the race and, while his pace was strong, he added three more penalties to the collection for the No.18 Comtoyou Racing car.

He was given two blue flag infringements - a consequence of just how far behind the leaders they were - as well as a 1 minute 55 second-time penalty for exceeding track limits.

All of these equated to over eight minutes of penalties for the team, and they limped to a 48th-place finish.

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