LANCE Stroll was delighted to lead Williams to their first double-points scoring finish of the season in Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix.

The Grove-based team have struggled throughout 2018, but their recent progress bore fruit at Monza.

Helped by Haas driver Romain Grosjean’s disqualification, Stroll came ninth and teammate Sergey Sirotkin, who was previously the only driver yet to score a point, tenth.

The former, who reached the final round of qualifying, said: “Feeling good is an understatement.

“I hoped we would score points, but I didn’t really expect it.

“We didn’t expect coming into the race we would have the pace to stay there, but we did.”

“We really nailed it in qualifying, the race and with the strategy. It was one of those weekends where it all just came together.”

Carlos Sainz was eighth for Renault, but teammate Nico Hulkenberg finished 13th after starting back in 20th.

The result keeps the Enstone-based team fourth in the constructors’ championship, extending their lead over Haas, who failed to score, to ten points.

Sainz said: “We can be happy with the weekend in general.

“We’ve managed to take four points from a weekend where we expected difficulties, so we can be happy with that.”

Grosjean was disqualified by FIA stewards, who found the floor of his Banbury-based Haas car to be illegal.

It turned out to be a day to forget for the team, with Kevin Magnussen finishing 16th after a collision with the Force India of Sergio Perez on the first lap.

He said: “It was a pretty long race for us.

“We had some damage on the rear tire after the first lap.

“I had to box for mediums and just went nowhere from there. Our race ended on lap one.”