Lance Stroll leads a charmed life as the son of a Canadian Billionaire. Daddy funded Lance’s junior racing career then landed him a seat at the cash strapped Williams team reportedly injecting $80m into the Grove based squad’s budget back in 2017.
The writing appeared to be on the wall for the rookie Canadian who crashed in practice for his debutant race in Australia and to add insult to injury he received a grid drop penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change. Lance eventually retired from the race with brake failure.
Clumsy F1 debut
Collisions with Sergio Perez at the Chinese Grand Prix and Carlos Sainz Jnr at the Bahrain Grand Prix saw Lance retire on another two occasions and his first race finish came at the Russian Grand Prix in round four of the 2017 season.
Now in his eighth season in the sport, Stroll’s future is repeatedly questioned by seasoned F1 observers particularly since the arrival of Fernando Alonso as his team mate. Whilst racing alongside former quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel, Stroll’s numbers appeared reasonable for a pay driver.
In 2021 Vettel and Stroll finished the drivers’ championship in P12 and P13 respectively with Sebastian winning out by 43-34 at the end of the season. Then in their second season together Vettel stamped his authority on the team mate battle ending the year 38-18 ahead of his team mate.
However, the arrival of Fernando Alonso in 2023 was to be a shock for Stroll who may reasonably have believed his efforts against Vettel were reasonable. Alonso scored six podium finishes in the first seven races of the year and come the finale in Abu Dhabi Fernando had finished in P4 with 206 points while Lance was placed in tenth place having scored just 74 points during the year.
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Lance mentality questioned
This kind of contribution would usually be expected from a rookie competing against a more experienced driver yet Lance is anything but a rookie, though still making rookie mistakes according to David Croft of Sky F1.
Speaking on this weeks Sky podcast Croft asked: “Why is Lance under pressure, other than the pressure of driving for a Formula 1 team? If he wants to stay around, he stays around surely?
“The team has been built around him – and there’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever – but if he wants to stay in Formula 1, he stays in Formula 1.
“That’s why his dad has invested so heavily into the facilities there and into that team, he wants his son to be to be a grand prix winner and to maybe have a chance of winning a World Championship.”
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Lawrence Stroll admits he’s a father first
Daddy Lawrence Stroll summed up his son’s performance in 2023 on the Netflix series broadcast this year: “Half of the races it hasn’t been anything to do with his own abilities, he has just had a lot of bad luck, sadly.”
Lawrence went on to outline he was a father first and a team owner second which merely fuelled the fires of criticism that Lance is only driving in F1 because of his dad’s cash rather than on talent.
David Croft questions whether Lance even wants to be in F1 raising there spectre it might be his father’s ambitions for him rather than his own.
“Does he want to stay? I honestly don’t know the answer to that. Sometimes he doesn’t look like he wants to be there and sometimes he does.
Lance at fault in China
“Sometimes he puts in a terrific performance and other times he makes the sort of rookie error that you don’t expect from a guy in his eighth season in Formula 1.
“I honestly don’t know what the situation is. I hope Lance is around to stay and I hope that he’s enjoying being in Formula 1 because, quite frankly, you’ve got to enjoy it because it is surely one of the greatest jobs in the world and you’re one of the privileged 20 to be doing that week in, week out.
“But that was that was a poor mistake.”
Croft is referring to the safety car car incident last time out in China saw Lance distracted run into the back of Daniel Ricciardo, who he instantly called an “idiot” over team radio.
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Stroll refuses to take responsibility
Fellow contributor to the podcast Christian Hewgill claimed that Lance was “defending the indefensible” by trying to pin the blame on Ricciardo.
“Even at karting level, you are taught from minute one that you focus on the bumper of the guy in front of you. It’s grassroots stuff,” he said.
“Looking over to the right, you’re defending the indefensible there. He’d have far more sympathy [if he just owned up to it]. Mistakes happen.
“And we’ve seen people spin under the safety car, spin on the formation lap, Max [Verstappen] put it in the wall on the way to the grid [at Hungary 2020] – things happen.
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Lance’s seven word interview
Lance has proven to be petulant when things go wrong on track giving a nigh on monosyllabic interview following his shocking result in Qatar qualifying last year. The young Canadian appeared to push his physio into a plastic wall at the rear of the team’s garage after exiting in Q1 for the Qatar GP.
He then swore in a TV interview, uttering a total of seven words when faced with three questions about his latest horror show.
Firstly asked what his emotions were, Stroll said: “Yeah s***.” The interviewer apologised for the language and quizzed him on what he thought was not clicking behind the wheel.
Stroll provided another blunt answer with: “I don’t know.”
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Another decent start to the season
He was then asked how the mindset would change for the weekend, abruptly replying: “Keep driving,” before storming off. At the time Lance had contributed just 47 of Aston Martin’s total of 221 points – a performance not even worthy of a rookie.
Returning to his mistake in China, Hewgill noted the gulf between Alonso and Stroll’s performances even though they drive the same car.
“You’d have far more respect if you’d just gone: ‘Actually, that was my mistake.’
“He started the season fairly promisingly and a little bit closer to Fernando and then that’s dipped again, and he’s a world away from Fernando.
“How much does that take a toll on your mentality?”
A ‘real life of privelidge’
Lance Stroll’s mindset is again questioned by the Sky contributor.
“I wonder if Lance is in the right headspace at the moment, because you would think he would come out of that situation and go: ‘Let’s cool down, I need to hold my hands up, I’ve made a mistake.’
“But he didn’t do that and that’s the most disappointing thing for me, not the mistake itself.”
Now in his eight season in Formula One Lance is clearly assured a drive at Aston Martin so long as he turns up each weekend. However, expecting the son of the Canadian billionaire to change his ways – in terms of attitude – is to fail to understand the real life of ultimate privilege. The faint glimmer of hope is that as a businessman Lawrence one day realises his son’s indulgence is costing him tens of millions of dollars.
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With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
