Lance Stroll has now been in Formula 1 for 6 years after he joined the Williams F1 Team at 18 on the back of an FIA Formula 3 title win, propelling him into F1 maybe slightly prematurely, with a little financial help from father, Lawrence Stroll, now owner of the Aston Martin F1 Team.
Ever since Lance appeared, people have taken issue with him essentially having a seat due to his father’s healthy bank balance. While ‘hate-culture’ comes into play with F1 ‘fans’, Lance has been unfairly judged.
📸 Lance in Interlagos, Brazil with Williams.
Lance however in my opinion is one of the most over-hated and underrated drivers in Formula 1. Let’s have a look at his F1 career to date.
2017
Lance’s rookie year saw him line up next to Felipe Massa and his season was defined by two highly impressive performances, the first being a podium finisher in Baku, the second a scintillating qualifying performance in torrential rain in Monza.
📸 Baku 2017: Lance Stroll finished third to become the youngest driver to take a podium in their rookie season aged 18 and 239 days, while also becoming the second youngest ever podium sitter after Max Verstappen.
📸 Monza 2017: Lance Stroll becomes the youngest ever front row sitter at 18 and 310 days. The Canadian qualified fourth but started second next to Lewis Hamilton after penalties were handed to both Red Bull’s.
Stroll ended the 2017 season 12th overall, just 3 points behind teammate Massa.
2018
The 2018 Williams car was the slowest car on that years grid, as Stroll became team leader when Sergey Sirotkin replaced the retired Massa.
📸 Stroll was actually out qualified several times by Sirotkin, but scored 6 of the team’s 7 points scored that year.
Stroll ended the season 18th overall, ahead of teammate Sirotkin and Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley.
📸 Hartley and Stroll crash in Canada.
2019
2019 saw Stroll leave Williams, joining the Racing Point team after his father led a consortium that bought out the former Force India team.
Stroll angered many by replacing the impressive performing Esteban Ocon, leaving the Frenchman out of a seat for 2019, but Ocon has since quashed rumours of frustration at Stroll, maintaining that the two are actually very good friends.
📸 Good friends: Stroll and Ocon.
Stroll ended the season 15th overall, with a best finish of fourth at the German Grand Prix after a strategic masterstroke moved him up the order.
2020
For 2020, Lance had arguably the best car under him that he’s had so far in his career, the controversial Racing Point RP20. Lining up alongside Sergio Perez for a second successive year, the RP20 seemed to mimic the Mercedes car from 2019 in a lot of ways aerodynamically, and the car was repeatedly protested by other teams on the grid.
Despite this, Lance performed admirably, scoring the his and Racing Point’s first pole position in F1 at a rain sodden, oil slick Turkish Grand Prix.
📸 Stroll took pole in Turkey, but suffered severe tyre graining and dropped down the order having led 32 laps.
Stroll ended the season 11th overall, scoring two podiums, one as he shared the podium in Gasly’s Monza win, and the other as Racing Point took a double podium in Sakhir as teammate Perez took his debut win. Stroll remarkably, scored points in 10 out of 17 rounds he participated in, as he missed the Nurburgring round with COVID-19.
📸 Gasly, Sainz and Stroll celebrate a shock podium in Monza.
2021
As Racing Point transitioned to Aston Martin, Stroll continued with the team, and was joined at the team by Sebastian Vettel.
Stroll took his best result of the year in Qatar at the Losail Circuit, finishing 6th as he finished 9 of the 22 races in the points as the team began their transitional phase.
📸 Lance in action in Losail.
Lance ended the season 13th overall, just 11 points off teammate Vettel.
2022
So far in 2022, Stroll has struggled and finds himself 12 points behind Vettel in the standings, down in 18th ahead of the Williams pair of Nicholas Latifi and Alex Albon and Aston Martin reserve Nico Hulkenberg who filled in for Covid-stricken Vettel at the start of the season.
📸 Hulkenback: Nico Hulkenberg fills in for Stroll’s teammate.
Jury’s still out as far as the second half of the season.
📸 Lance takes to the track.
Bottom line however is, Lance Stroll is hard done by by some sections of the F1 viewers.
The Canadian driver is regularly close to teammates on race weekends, is excellent usually in the wet and is capable of getting excellent results in less than impressive machinery.
📸 Lance has endured a difficult season so far, but there’s time to improve.
Hate has no place in F1, no matter what your standing in the sport. Recently, a French commentator, Lionel Froissart, was suspended and subsequently dropped for aiming a jibe at Stroll; which is highly uncalled for.
Many people jump straight to his dad’s financial backing or him ‘skipping’ F2.
1. Money helps. Not one driver on the grid is there because they have ‘no money’, no matter how they get it.
2. ‘Skipping’ F2 is an option. Lance along with Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen and the reigning world champion, Max Verstappen are just 3 examples of drivers who raced in F1 without racing in F2 or GP2.
📸 Raikkonen made his debut in F1 after just 23 car races.
Lance like all other F1 drivers, was good enough to gain a Super Licence to race in F1, it doesn’t matter how you get it. Just enjoy the drivers we have in F1 while we have them, including Lance!
Thanks for reading!
📸 Image credit(s): Formula Motorsport Limited, Williams Racing, Aston Martin Racing, Racing Point.
Comments