David Croft reveals further details of Stroll’s reported garage outburst at Spanish GP

Lance Stroll’s withdrawal from the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix has been a popular topic of conversation following the weekend in Barcelona. Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft has since given further insight into reports that the Canadian driver had a heated outburst in the garage.

After qualifying 14th on Saturday, Aston Martin announced that the 26-year-old had withdrawn from the race citing a wrist injury.

“Over the course of the past six weeks Lance has been experiencing pain in his hand and wrist, which his medical consultant believes is in relation to the procedure he underwent in 2023,” the Silverstone outfit confirmed on Saturday. “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.”

Croft discussed Stroll’s injury during the Sky Sports F1 Show.

“In terms of Lance Stroll hitting the wall, Mike Krack won’t tolerate anything like that going on in the garage,” he explained. “I understand that a helmet was thrown, to the extent that the helmet might have been damaged, such was the force that it hit the wall. There was a lot of shouting and swearing going on as well.

“Lance has got form for punching walls – albeit, you know, partition walls before that wouldn’t necessarily hurt him. I’ve heard that before in his time at Aston Martin.”

What Croft questioned was whether Stroll’s injury had actually been monitored for six weeks. As the Canadian driver completed qualifying prior to withdrawing, and the reserve driver did not take part in any session during the weekend, the team had to race with only Fernando Alonso in the Grand Prix. Croft argued that if the team had known about the injury for six weeks, they surely would have had reserve driver Felipe Drugovich drive in at least one practice session across the weekend to avoid losing a car from the race.

“I don’t buy the ‘we’ve been monitoring this for six weeks,’ because if they’ve been monitoring it for six weeks, then surely for the good of the team, they wouldn’t have put Lance into the car in qualifying,” Croft continued.

“If they’ve been monitoring it and it’s got to a point whereby he might not be fit enough to do the race, they’ll bring Drugovich in before qualifying. And then Lance puts in a lap that takes him P7 in Q1, so he’s obviously fit enough to drive well at some stage during that qualifying session.

“Park that for a minute, Felipe Drugovich will be in the car if Lance Stroll isn’t in the car in Canada. There are contracts in place. He’s their reserve driver. He’ll pull out of Le Mans. Look, we all know Felipe and we all think that he deserves a chance to get on the grid, and he is a Formula 2 champion. He is a super driver, and he wants Formula 1, so he’s not going to go and do Le Mans if he’s got a chance to take part in the race.

“But has Lance been suffering for six weeks? Look, the stewards were satisfied that there was a medical issue, so there was obviously something wrong. But whether they’ve been monitoring it for six weeks or not… Look, we don’t know, because they haven’t said anything up until the point that Lance didn’t take part in the race on Sunday.”