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Williams technical director Paddy Lowe has revealed that Lance Stroll had a private test in the US following the Canadian Grand Prix in a bid to aid his performances. After a struggling start to his Formula 2 career, the 18-year-old collected his first points of the season in Canada, before yesterday out-qualifying teammate Felipe Massa for the first time.
The test took place at the Circuit of the Americas, which hosts the US Grand Prix each year. Stroll drove the 2014 FW36, a car he knows well from his private tests in 2016. He was able to get a better understanding of set-ups during the test, which Lowe says helped him in qualifying yesterday.
"We went to Austin last week driving the 2014 car so did a few experiments there with set-up, looking at the differences between his set-up and Felipe's set-up," Lowe explained. "Some of that has been brought forward here and I think that's put him in a much better place.
"The changes are generic things that are common to most racing cars actually, just around how we've got the car configured, which definitely helped him.
"The trouble on a Friday is you've got limited time, a limited number of tyres, they're often not the same type of tyre, and the tracks moving quite quickly as well, so it's a great advantage to be able to go just spend a whole day on something."
Lowe now believes Stroll's career has been properly launched, also claiming that 2017 is one of the hardest years ever for a rookie to come into Formula 1, due to the increased difficulty of driving cars that have much more downforce than ever before.
"Certainly, I feel like Lance's Formula 1 career is now properly launched," he said. "You could argue this is the most difficult time to come in as a rookie with the current formula and the current situation.
"Experienced drivers really struggling themselves, world champions struggling to make the tyres work in certain situations. We saw Lewis even said this in February in Barcelona, it was a difficult time to enter the sport as a rookie."
Fergal Walsh
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