Stroll plays down qualifying pace struggles

Lance Stroll (L) with his daddy, is getting destroyed by his teammate Perez

(GMM) Lance Stroll says he knows he has to improve his qualifying pace.

The young Canadian moved for 2019 from struggling Williams to the newly-named Racing Point team, which was bought last year by Stroll's father Lawrence.

So far, he is struggling to be fast on Saturdays.

"I'm not too worried because you get the points on Sunday," Stroll, 20, is quoted by La Presse Canadienne.

"I see the positive side. We have managed to ignore the problems of Saturday to score points in the race on Sunday," he said, referring to Baku where he finished ninth.

And Stroll said there were reasons why qualifying hasn't gone his way so far in 2019.

"In Australia I found myself in traffic, then in Bahrain we had problems that limited my track time. It's still early days but if I keep working on the small details, I'm sure everything will fall into place," he said.

"In Friday practice my pace is generally good. It's all about putting the pieces of the puzzle together at the same time and then I can move on to Q2 and maybe even Q3," Stroll added.

Racing Point has struggled so far this season but boss Otmar Szafnauer says the pink car has been upgraded for Barcelona.

"I don't expect any major surprises this weekend, but I'd like to see us in the middle of the pack here and then score points again," he said.