Lance Stroll breaks unwanted record with most Q1 exits in F1 history – and it’s a record set to last. Lance Stroll sets a new F1 record with 75 Q1 eliminations, surpassing Kevin Magnussen.

What a crisis for Aston Martin F1!
Aston Martin is struggling as the team awaits super-designer Adrian Newey to step in and save the day—at least looking ahead to 2026—since the former Red Bull mastermind is not involved in this year’s car. In the meantime, Fernando Alonso keeps fighting and collecting disappointments, including at the track where, two years ago, he claimed the last podium of his career. Things went even worse for Lance Stroll, who, after being knocked out in Q1, has now set a rather unenviable new record that unwittingly writes his name into the history of Formula 1.

New record for Lance Stroll
As of today, the young Canadian driver holds the outright record for the most eliminations in the first qualifying session: following his Q1 exit during qualifying for the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah, Stroll has now been knocked out in Q1 a staggering 75 times in his career. With that, the 26-year-old surpasses Kevin Magnussen, with whom he previously shared the record. Even more striking is his Q1 elimination rate: having competed in 172 race weekends (excluding the 2020 Eifel GP, which he missed due to a positive COVID test), Stroll has failed to progress past Q1 in 43.6% of his entries.

As often happens with these kinds of stats, the numbers are somewhat misleading. The data excludes many drivers who may have fared worse over the years but raced during periods when the qualifying format did not include the current three-part knockout sessions—Q1, Q2, and Q3. That system has only been in place since 2006, meaning earlier drivers aren’t factored into this ranking.

The leaderboard: why this record is set to last
Nonetheless, the numbers remain telling. Despite still being relatively young, the son of the Aston Martin team owner has competed long enough—this is his ninth year on the F1 grid—to claim a historic, albeit unwanted, record. Behind him, aside from the aforementioned Magnussen (74 eliminations in 186 GPs), is Marcus Ericsson, who exited Q1 71 times in just 97 races. Timo Glock follows with 59 eliminations, and then there’s a trio—Adrian Sutil, Heikki Kovalainen, and Nicholas Latifi—all tied with 55 Q1 exits.

In short, Lance Stroll’s record looks set to stand for quite a while, especially since he’s the only one among the mentioned drivers still active in Formula 1.