Whilst Sergio Perez and his woeful comparative performance this season to his team mate has been the talk of the paddock, there are other drivers whose futures are under scrutiny. Yuki Tsuoda looks to have been stealing a living for almost three years but his performances for Alpha Tauri have improved since the permanent arrival of his new team mate Daniel Ricciardo.
Since Austin when his Aussie team mate returned from his broken hand, Tsuoda has nailed his best two finishes of the year with a P8 at the US GP and a P9 last time out in Brazil.
The only driver yet to be confirmed for 2024 is Logan Sargeant who has repeatedly crashed his car out of F1 weekends costing the Williams team plenty of their annual development budget.
The Floridian driver finally scored his first point in Formula One at the US GP but only after Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc who finished ahead of him were disqualified for running their cars too low.
However, the real enigma amongst the drivers who have spectacularly not delivered this season is the Aston Martin billionaire owner’s son who has been royally embarrassed by his new team mate Fernando Alonso.
Lance has just over a quarter of the points that his Spanish team mate has scored and add to that Fernando has been on the podium no less than 8 times in 20 races.
Stroll woeful record in 2023
Stroll Jnr appeared to lose it in Qatar when he was seen pushing his performance coach following another Q1 elimination in the recent Qatar Grand Prix.
The Canadian could only manage P17 in the heat at the Lusail International Circuit. He was a whopping 1.1s slower than teammate Fernando Alonso. The two-time World Champion would ultimately qualify a strong P4.
Stroll got out of the car in his garage and tried to head out the back of it. However, as Henry Howe was trying to point him in the direction to get weighed, the Canadian shrugged him off. When Howe tried again to get him to do what is mandatory after your qualifying ends, the 24-year-old clearly pushed him.
This was the fourth consecutive Q1 exit for Stroll and his fifth overall in 2023. He’s also failed to make a standard Q3 session ten times. Stablemate Fernando Alonso has got himself into Q3 at all but one races this season.
Aston Martin should have challenged Ferrari
Lance was curt with the media giving single word answers when performing his mandatory post session bull pen interviews.
Rumours then surfaced that F1 was not Lance’s preferred sport and that he would have enjoyed a life as a tennis professional more. Of course tennis is more of a meritocracy than F1 and to play on the world pro tour requires a player to prove he can mix it with the best to even get there.
Lance is privileged because even though he has performed like a rookie this season, it appears he will once again take his seat at Aston Martin next year, despite whispers his father has tried to suggest its time to call it a day.
Stroll junior’s poor performance this season has cost Aston Martin their fourth place to the resurgent McLaren F1 team and further had Stroll delivered even 150 points to Alonso’s 198, the Silverstone based team would be pushing Ferrari for third this season.
Dramatic price falls for remaining Vegas tickets/hotels
Lance costs Aston Martin tens of millions
Despite the reality that Lance is costing his father tens of millions in lost prize money, team boss Mike Krack has now asserted that Stroll Jar will be back next year competing again alongside Fernando Alonso.
Stroll himself appears to not be broken by the infinitely superior performance of his team mate and now reveals his plans for 2024
“The plan is I’m staying next year. It’s been a challenging season at times for sure. [There’s been] some great highlights but also some really frustrating days of recent.
“But yeah, the plan is to keep going next year for sure.”
Discovered: The reason Red. Bull are so fast
Stroll Sir serious about investment in F1 team
Stroll’s comments are not conclusive and given the relationship with the team owner, surely he should be stating he WILL be in the car next year – not that ‘its the plan.’
Lawrence Stroll set out to build a successful F1 team and unlike Gene Haas he has delivered with the dollars required to launch the once ‘also ran’ Silverstone squad into genuine podium contenders week in and out.
The new factory and associated facilities will kick in and contribute to the design of next years car and the development capabilities the team have during the season.
Yet Lawrence didn’t build his multi billion empire on sympathy or nepotism so it is a fair question to ask – ‘when is enough enough’. How long can Lawrence afford for the team’s credibility and long term value continue to indulge his son, who is clearly never going to be a driver challenging for titles and probably not even a race win?
Lance points scored embarrassing
For now Daddy stroll appears to be patronising his son, but given paddock rumours after the debacle in Qatar, Lance is on thin ice even with Papa and another poor season when compared to his team mate could well be curtains for the Canadian driver.
Lance is no rookie of course he has entered 143 Grand Prix, claimed a pole position and three podiums. However his career points total of 257 since his inaugural season (2017) almost 7 years ago is hardly anything to write home about and of all the drivers with that length of service within the sport, Lance stands alone with the paucity of his returns.
READ MORE: Hamilton lost $30m to Verstappen…. and counting
AUDI sell off to Toyota?
Audi’s foray into the high-stakes world of Formula One for the 2026 season has hit a turbulent patch of speculation. With the abrupt departure of CEO Markus Duesmann, who championed the F1 entry, the company’s commitment to the pinnacle of motorsport is under intense scrutiny.
This uncertainty has put the spotlight on Audi’s partnership with the Sauber team, with questions being raised as to whether the Swiss outfit could be sold off before it joins the grid in 2026…. READ MORE
Another lame article written by AI… and it couldnt find any dirt that you hoped for.
Glass, the AMRF1 performance engineer lead just did an interview stating that Alonso has been given all the upgrades at each race and stroll jr always got the old stuff. So that they could get twice the data and real time comparisons. And that it was by orders of his father.
Not so nice having your dad in charge anymore is it?