SEPANG—The dramatic and disordered Bahrain/Malaysian Grand Prix was full of surprises, but none more surprising than 10-time DNF, five-time lapped driver Lance Stroll finishing his first full race of the 2026 season.
The achievement was especially surprising to his own team, which had not budgeted for any celebration supplies and immediately began scrambling to find ribbon poppers, confetti, some old candles, or anything else they could use to mark this historic day for the Stroll Sr.-funded seat.
“How were we supposed to know this could happen?” said Crew Chief Curtis Stones as he searched drawers for anything that resembled an award. “This guy is finishing full races now. What’s next? Top-10 finishes? We might have to rethink our entire budget strategy here.”
Verstappen might have won the race, but Lance Stroll’s smile would have made you believe he won, and in a way, he did.
He won.
He finished.
The full thing.
P12.
How many people do you know who have finished a full Formula 1 race? Verstappen takes it for granted. He doesn’t do it for the love of the game like Stroll does.
“I just want to thank my team, my sponsors, my Starbucks barista Jeff, my iRacing team, and my daddy for making this possible,” said Stroll with the demeanor of an excited golden retriever. “The only thing that would have made it better is if they had been ready for my victory. I had to GrubHub some champagne, but in about 35 minutes it’s going to pop off.”
The team was eventually able to find a used birthday candle, shredded documents to use as confetti, and a plastic karting trophy belonging to one of the crew members’ kids, who had actually beaten Stroll to win it.
It’s unclear what Fernando Alonso’s opinion on all this is, but he doesn’t care. He’s just living his best life.
Stroll, on the other hand, is just doing the best he can.