Lance Stroll takes the lead in a race you do not want to win

It was a difficult weekend for Aston Martin at the British Grand Prix.

And now one of their drivers is winning a race no driver wants to win.

On Sunday during the British Grand Prix, Lance Stroll was locked in a battle for 11th place late in the race with Pierre Gasly. At one point, Stroll went wide and off the track, but rejoined in front of the Alpine driver. While Gasly radioed into his team to point that fact out, race stewards determined that no further action was needed, despite that seeming to violate regulations.

“To me, it was quite clear, and it’s always been in the regulations,” Gasly told media following the race. “You can’t leave the track and gain an advantage. From everything I’ve seen, he had four wheels off the track passing me, and that’s gaining an advantage.”

The two were not done battling, and later came into contact in the closing stages of the race. The collision damaged Gasly’s A523, forcing a retirement from the race for the Alpine driver.

This time Stroll was penalized by race officials. Citing both “video and in-car video evidence” the stewards imposed a five-second penalty during the race for “causing a collision,” as well as two penalty points for the Aston Martin driver:

That brings Stroll’s current penalty points total to seven, and puts him in the lead among drivers on the grid.

F1 uses a penalty points system as a way of regulating driver behavior. In many ways, this works like a standard driver’s license. Points for unsafe driving — such as causing a collision in this case — can be imposed by race officials and added to a driver’s “Super License.” If a driver receives 12 points over the course of a calendar year, they face a one-race ban.

Stroll now has seven points on his FIA Super License: Two for this incident with Gasly, two for a collision with Fernando Alonso — his current teammate — dating back to last year’s United States Grand Prix, and three for an unsafe maneuver during the Sprint race at last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix.

Points last one calendar year, and the next points that expire for Stroll are the two from last year’s United States GP, which will expire in October. If Stroll were to accumulate five more penalty points before then, he would face a one-race ban.

Interestingly enough, the driver who had the most penalty points coming into the year, who Stroll just passed on the “bad driver list?” Gasly.

The Alpine driver entered the 2023 season sitting on ten penalty points, and was at-risk of a one-race ban until May of this year, when two points were set to expire for causing a collision during the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix.

Gasly receive a few reprieves along the way. The cancellation of the Emilia-Romagna GP eliminated a potential race from the calendar, and despite being summoned to the stewards’ trailer following a late-race collision with teammate Esteban Ocon at the end of the Australian Grand Prix, officials determined that incident to be a “first-lap incident,” and did not impose any penalties.

The two points for the incident at Barcelona last year expired in May, dropping Gasly down to eight points. Then on Monday following the British Grand Prix three more points came off his Super License, two for causing a collision during the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix, and one more for exceeding track limits during the Austrian Grand Prix a year ago.

Now Gasly sits on five, with Stroll ahead of him with seven.

An overtake the Aston Martin driver certainly did not want to make.