Lance Stroll admitted he was "s****ing my pants" during the hairiest moments of the British Grand Prix.
It ended up being a positive weekend for Aston Martin as they scored a double haul of points. Stroll finished seventh - his joint-second best result of the year so far - while Fernando Alonso was seven seconds behind in eighth.
For a team that has ambitions of podiums and race victories, 10 points across both their drivers could be seen as a modest return. But Aston Martin have struggled for performance so far this year.
And Stroll was happy with how his car felt by the end of the Silverstone weekend after improvements in set-up helped him to finish comfortably in the points. He said: "It was great. It was great. Big uplift for the team this weekend."
But it wasn't all smooth sailing for the Canadian. The changeable weather conditions made it tricky for all the drivers, especially while they all held their nerve on the slick tyres while waiting for the optimum time to make the switch to the intermediates.
He admitted: "I was not confident, I was shitting my pants. When it starts raining at such a high speed track like this, the mixed conditions are so tough because you've got to really keep your foot in it, believe and commit to the corners.
"But with a bit of rain on the visor, wet patches creeping in, it is just so easy to lose the car and hit the barrier. It was just so hard to keep the car on track in the first place, so to be honest, I’m happy to pick up the points."
In the first half of 2023, Aston Martin were challenging for regular podiums and looked to be the ones taking the fight to Red Bull. But they have been comprehensively outdeveloped by their rivals in the time since and have slipped back into the midfield as a result - something which has been a frustration for both their drivers.
Summing up the situation, Stroll said: "We were there beginning of last year. I don't think we were totally there, we were not in position to win races last year, but we had a quick car and some podiums and a lot of top fives and stuff.
"I think ultimately we took a bit of a wrong direction in terms of development philosophy. We went down the wrong path and we’ve slowly been realising that more and more. Now it's a matter of changing path and then giving it time to develop and get good again by going down that different path."
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