F1 star OUT of Spanish Grand Prix and will undergo surgery after serious injury and pain in his wrist as grid is changed
LANCE STROLL is OUT of this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.
The Aston Martin driver, 26, will undergo surgery on a troublesome hand and wrist issue.
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Stroll qualified in P14 for Sunday's race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
But the Canadian had been complaining about pain in his wrist for over a month.
Stroll broke both wrists in a cycling accident on the eve of the 2023 F1 season.
In a statement, Aston Martin wrote on X: "Over the course of the past six weeks Lance has been experiencing pain in his hand and wrist.
"His medical consultant believes this is in relation to the procedure he underwent in 2023.
"As a result his medical team have confirmed that he will not race tomorrow and he will undergo a procedure to rectify these issues before focusing on his recovery."
The team added that due to "sporting regulations", Fernando Alonso would be their only car running in Spain.
F1 rules state only drivers who took part in qualifying can start on the grid.
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Despite Stroll's withdrawal, there will be no change to the grid placings from P14 upwards.
Drivers lining up behind Stroll will still start in their slated positions rather than moving up one place.
It remains to be seen if Stroll can return to driving in time for his home Canadian Grand Prix on June 15.
Felipe Drugovich is the next man up for Aston Martin.
Oscar Piastri clinched pole position during an eventful qualifying session on Saturday.
He narrowly beat colleague Lando Norris into P2 as the McLaren's dominated in Barcelona.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen was third fastest, 0.302secs slower than Piastri.
Mercedes driver George Russell set exactly the same lap time to start in P4, with Lewis Hamilton and his Ferrari just behind.
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For Damon Hill, next week's British Grand Prix at Silverstone promises to bring back special memories. It is 31 years since the silver-goateed former racer won his home Grand Prix, an achievement even his father, legendary two-time world champion Graham Hill, never managed. But it was what happened after that race that Hill is going to try to recreate next week. '1994 was the first year EJ [Eddie Jordan] got us all up on to his flatbed truck to play rock'n'roll in the paddock,' Hill recalls, smiling. 'He came over with his brother-in-law, or his cousin, Des Large – there was a whole gang of them from Ireland.' A tradition was born that day. Hill, who as a teenager had played in a punk band called Sex Hitler and the Hormones, was on guitar, fellow drivers Johnny Herbert and Perry McCarthy assisted on vocals, Jordan himself was on drums. 'I think [David] Coulthard was on triangle,' Hill says, laughing. 'I'm going to get him up on stage. 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They were the first father-son world champion combination. Murray Walker, who had known Graham well during his career, famously had to stop commentating when Damon clinched the title in Japan because he had a 'lump in his throat' (listen to his commentary below). Damon Hill takes his eighth win of the season, and with it the Drivers' Championship at Suzuka. Murray Walker with commentary. Japan - 1996 #F1 — F1 History (@TodayF1History) February 6, 2024 But for Hill, his 1996 triumph did not give him the closure he thought it might. When he retired a few years later, he still had to come to terms with his grief. Years of depression and therapy followed. 'You can't bring someone back from the dead,' Hill says of what he learnt in those sessions, as he sits back on a sofa in his Farnham home. We are on a video call. 'You can't undo the experience. What you have to do is defuse it. It's like an unexploded bomb. You've got to defuse it, so it doesn't go off at times when you're under stress. Because it will. 'I still get massive anxiety. If something gets slightly too worrying for me, I get this panic attack. My mum had it too. She was on edge her whole life. Because she had been waiting for that call her whole life. All her friends got 'the call', you know? Her friends whose husbands died [in motor racing accidents], they'd all got 'the call'. 'And then Dad retires. She thinks she's in the clear. Her guard is down. And then… 'Oh, here's the call'. So I've lived with that anxiety, that bolt out of the blue. And even if I speak about it now I touch wood.' The man who 'never wanted to be an F1 driver' Hill's story has been told before. His autobiography, Watching the Wheels, published in 2016, was a typically insightful and eloquent attempt to grapple with life's big questions by a man who has become an acclaimed pundit on both television and radio. 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'He was asking about Ollie [the Hills' eldest child] and talking about how happy he was with his nephews, playing with them in the sea. He's leaving and he stops and says: 'Don't worry about Damon, he's going to be fine. Williams are a great team. They're safe. They'll look after him.' He literally walked out, went to his garage, went straight to his car. And that was that.' F1 fans might be surprised the film makes no mention of Roland Ratzenberger, the Austrian driver who also lost his life during that Imola race weekend. The makers apparently decided F1 fans already know the history, and those who did not, did not need the extra detail. Producer Simon Lazenby, of Sky Sports F1, who first came up with the idea for the film when he and Damon were flying back from a race in Canada in 2018, admits cost was also a factor. The film was made on 'a tight budget, six figures rather than seven', with every minute of archive footage costing thousands. In that respect, it helps that Hill has always been a keen videographer, just like his father was. 'Dad had a Super 8, an 8mm film. And I think maybe because he did it… I don't know, I just loved capturing those moments, too. I gave the makers hours and hours of home videos to wade through, way too much in fact!' 'I am competitive. And so is Georgie' Hill's rise from novice bike rider to novice racing car driver to F1 test driver to F1 world champion is interspersed with home footage of Georgie and their expanding family. The couple have four children: Oliver, Josh, Tabitha and Rosie. Ollie was born with Down's syndrome, just when Damon was getting his F1 career under way, another key moment. Georgie remembers the hospital staff scribbling down the names of care homes that might take him. 'He wasn't even 12 hours old and they'd laid out his future for him,' she says. 'And I felt: 'Right, OK, if that's all he's worth. He's worth a lot more to us.'' 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No! That's what I thought. But what I said was, 'Oh. OK! Great!'' he wrote in his book. But he backed him all the way to European F3 before Josh quit suddenly in 2013, initially to pursue a musical career. Hill was impressed both by his son's driving skills and his decisiveness; knowing what he wanted in life. It is back to that overarching theme again. What drove Hill? In one particularly revealing bit of home video in the documentary, at a school sports day involving Josh in the early 2000s, Hill might have been interviewing himself. 'You want him to be the best don't you?' he asks Georgie. 'No, as long as he's back safely,' she counters. 'I don't want him to be competitive at all. I want him to enjoy his life.' Hill persists. 'You don't think he can enjoy his life by winning?' Georgie replies: 'I don't want him to feel he always has to be the best at something and if he hasn't won he has failed. I think that's terrible.' It is a fascinating exchange. 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But I think you'll find that people who do a lot of therapy are quite resilient, because you don't have the illusions any more. You don't have this idea of how it could be if only everything was different. You just try to come to terms with the world, rather than get the world to come to terms with you.' Hill smiles again. 'It was enjoyable [making the film], going through all the old archives, the different haircuts through the ages, the children, everything that was going on contemporaneously. Because that's real life. I mean, all these F1 drivers… we see them now, they show themselves off on their speedboats or whatever. But when they go back to their apartments, they're human like the rest of us. They all go 'What's on the telly?' F1 is this extraordinary, high-octane world, but in between, it's unbelievably normal. I used to come back after winning a race and put the bins out.'
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