With broken bones in the car
Stroll makes ordeal for the F1 start public
By Sebastian Schneider
3/8/2023 6:54 p.m
It was a surprise that Formula 1 driver Lance Stroll did not miss the first race of the season. The Canadian broke several bones in both wrists less than two weeks before the start. On Instagram, he shares his arduous journey back into the cockpit.
Even Formula 1 veteran Fernando Alonso got enthusiastic. The 41-year-old Spaniard, who surprisingly ended the season opener in third place in Bahrain, was not only happy about his own result after the race, but also about his teammate Lance Stroll’s sixth place. “He’s my hero,” he told Sky Sport on Sunday after the race.
Because what the public didn’t know yet, but Alonso probably already does, are the details of the ordeal that Stroll went through in the fifteen days leading up to the race. His team kept the Canadian’s health a little secret. It was only known that the 24-year-old broke both wrists in a bicycle accident. As a result, Stroll had to drop out for the test drives a week before the race, with substitute driver Felipe Drugovich at the wheel.
Stroll has now submitted the details of his arduous journey back to the F1 cockpit on Instagram. In addition to a longer text, he has also published videos showing him with his forearms in thick casts and then starting to handle the dumbbells again a few days later. These are images that look painful to look at.
Recovery as a “full-time job”
But first things first: According to him, Stroll had a bicycle accident on February 18 during a training ride in Spain. “With the start of the season just around the corner, the timing couldn’t have been worse,” he wrote. There were just fifteen days between the accident and the start of the first race in Bahrain. In his post, he also gave details of his injury for the first time: According to this, the examinations showed fractures in both wrists, the left hand and the big toe on the right foot.
The doctors, for whose commitment the Canadian thanked him, initially assumed that he would “realistically miss the first few races”. 48 hours after the accident he had an operation on his right hand. His doctor then told him that if he worked hard he would be back in the second race of the season – with a bit of luck maybe even in the first.
However, apparently not all fractures could be operated on. Stroll’s doctor told him that the fractures in his left hand and associated joint needed to be treated conservatively. It then became Stroll’s “full-time job” to take care of the recovery of his wrists. “Progress was slow at first. I needed a lot of help even with everyday things at home,” he explained.
It wasn’t until four days after the accident, when his rail was removed, that there was any hope: “There was a chance that we could already start in Bahrain,” wrote Stroll. As a result, his medical team developed a program to first make the injured wrists flexible again and then strengthen them. “Rehab required hard work and perseverance, but with the help of my doctors, friends and family, I was able to push through the pain.”
Alonso knows what his teammate has been through
The result is truly amazing: thirteen days after sustaining fractures in both wrists, Stroll was actually back in the cockpit for the first free practice session in Bahrain. Still, he couldn’t hide his injuries: he looked battered throughout the race weekend, limping around the paddock in flip flops. In addition, he obviously had problems operating the steering wheel at first.
This raised doubts about Stroll’s driving ability: in the first few laps after his return, he had to adjust his driving line and be heaved out of the car by mechanics after training – a precautionary measure, as the team later announced. There are video recordingsas he did when steering in training to relieve the strain on his hands.
Stroll also had problems in the race. On the first lap, he touched the car of his team-mate Alonso because he misjudged the way into the first corner. And the burden just got bigger and bigger as time went on. “In the last 20 laps it was my pain that limited me the most,” he explained afterwards. In particular, he had to struggle with the slow corners, which require a lot of use of the steering wheel. Despite everything, he made it to sixth place.
Why Alonso later called him a “hero” can perhaps also be explained by the fact that he was in a very similar situation last season. “As for me, I can empathize with him. I rode with broken bones in both hands after my crash in Melbourne in 2022 and it wasn’t until August that I had fully recovered and was able to compete pain free,” said the Spaniard. According to Alonso, this resilience is in the nature of Formula 1 drivers. “But that’s who we are: we love this sport, so we grit our teeth.” For Stroll, that means the torment isn’t over yet: the next race in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is in a week and a half. A high-speed course with 27 corners and walls on the side of the track that hardly allow for mistakes.