Lance Stroll finished third at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2017. He was 18 years old, it was his first visit to the circuit, and nothing in the eight starts since has got anywhere near it.
Nine starts, 27 points, one podium. More than half of that total came before his twentieth birthday.
The best day came first
2017 was a Williams season in which very little went right, and Baku was the exception. He qualified eighth, kept the car out of the walls while a good deal of the field did not, and came home third for fifteen points. It is still the largest single haul of his Azerbaijan career by some distance.
The follow-ups were respectable rather than remarkable. Eighth in 2018 from tenth on the grid, then ninth in 2019 from thirteenth, that one with Racing Point. Six points across two years, and the sense of a driver taking what a midfield car allowed.
Then came the lean stretch. He started nineteenth in both 2021 and 2022, the first ending in an accident and the second in vibrations that left him sixteenth. Two weekends, no points, and no real position to work from on either Saturday.
2023 briefly interrupted it. Ninth on the grid and seventh at the flag was his only scoring finish for Aston Martin at this track, and the only time since 2019 he has left Baku with anything.
2024 ended in retirement from thirteenth on the grid. 2025 was a quiet seventeenth. 2026 was the shortest of the lot: last on the grid, and out on lap 7. The gap back to that first afternoon has only widened.
Lance Stroll's Azerbaijan GP record year by year
Every Azerbaijan Grand Prix start, with the grid slot it came from and what it was worth.
| Season | Grid | Finish | Points | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 8 | P3 | 15 | Williams |
| 2018 | 10 | P8 | 4 | Williams |
| 2019 | 13 | P9 | 2 | Racing Point |
| 2021 | 19 | P19 | 0 | Aston Martin |
| 2022 | 19 | P16 | 0 | Aston Martin |
| 2023 | 9 | P7 | 6 | Aston Martin |
| 2024 | 13 | P19 | 0 | Aston Martin |
| 2025 | 14 | P17 | 0 | Aston Martin |
| 2026 | 22 | P22 | 0 | Aston Martin |
Eight years on from the high point
Six of the nine starts have come with Aston Martin and they have produced six points between them. The two Williams years produced nineteen. That is the shape of the record: a strong start, a long plateau, and a single good Sunday in the middle of it.
The 2026 weekend gave him nothing to work with. He qualified last in the AMR26 and lasted seven laps, one of two Aston Martins out inside twenty. Baku rewards drivers who simply survive it, and he has done that five times in nine attempts.
