A year after battling through two broken wrists and a broken toe to finish P6 at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Lance Stroll would have been looking forward to a more ‘normal’ race weekend this time around.

That was until he was unwittingly punted and spun around by Nico Hulkenberg at Turn 1 on Saturday, who himself had been subject to contact from Valtteri Bottas, but what followed from the Aston Martin driver is worthy of high praise.

Lance Stroll puts in ‘brilliant recovery’ to Bahrain Grand Prix point after first-lap shunt

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Stroll plummeted to 19th in the field as a result of this spin, leaving him with plenty of work to do to try and put himself back in points contention.

As team-mate Fernando Alonso struggled to hold onto his place, his simulations admitting that 9th place would be the ceiling of his capabilities on Saturday, Stroll had to work hard to try and get onto his tail.

In his first stint, Stroll put on several overtakes before pitting at the end of lap nine and looking to undercut cars in front, and that worked out well for him as it moved the Canadian back up into a net 12th place when the first pit stops had shaken out.

But as team principal Mike Krack revealed after the race, Stroll’s final stint was a feat that no other driver managed on Saturday, completing 30 laps on a set of hard tyres and working his way up to 10th in the process.

Having been spun around and fallen to the back, without Safety Car intervention, Stroll finished one place behind his team-mate come the chequered flag in an unexpected turn of events.

He was not a candidate for the fan-voted Driver of the Day award as the race finished, but he came in for praise from his team boss as a result.

“Excellent, excellent job,” Krack told media including PlanetF1.com when asked about Stroll’s race.

“Because if you see here, he did 30 laps on the last stint, which nobody else did, and other cars were already dying on their tyres with less laps, so it was really strong.

“In such situations, you don’t have much choice, you are at the back and then you find yourself, if you have the faster car, you need to take it out of the traffic.

“So that’s what we tried and obviously we recovered quickly, and then you need to try to pass.

“At the end, it was about, do we manage to survive with the tyres? I think we did due to a great drive, great pace and tyre management from Lance’s side, and this allowed us to get the point at the end.”