DOHA, Qatar — An angry Lance Stroll appeared to push his trainer out of the way after being eliminated in the first qualifying session at the Qatar Grand Prix.
Stroll, who’s billionaire father Lawrence owns the Aston Martin team he drives for, continued his woeful form by failing to progress beyond Q1 for the fourth consecutive event.
Barring penalties for others, he will start Sunday’s race from 17th.
A replay played on F1’s world feed later appeared to show Stroll pushing his osteopath and performance coach, Henry Howe, although a wall at the rear of the team’s garage obstructed a clear view.
The replay did clearly show Stroll climbing out of his car and then ignoring Howe gesturing him to go the other way, presumably so he could go to the FIA’s weighbridge.
Howe then followed Stroll to the rear of the garage, where the incident took place.
Stroll later gave an eight-word interview to F1 TV.
When asked how he was feeling, Stroll just said: “Yeah, it’s s—“.
He was then asked what was not clicking, to which he said: “I don’t know”.
The final of three questions was whether he would change his mindset ahead of a weekend which features a sprint race on Saturday.
To that, Stroll just said: “Keep driving”.
Aston Martin did not immediately respond to ESPN’s request to clarify what had happened at the back of the garage.
Stroll’s poor form included a heavy crash in Q1 for the Singapore Grand Prix, which prompted Aston Martin to withdraw him from the race.
The Canadian has significantly hampered Aston Martin in the constructors’ championship this year, scoring just 47 of the team’s 221 points.
While Stroll’s best performance has been a single fourth place finish in Australia at the start of the year, teammate Fernando Alonso has been on the podium seven times.