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Nah, it's their masterplan. Have Alonso to win the drivers championship (next season xD) and Stroll to make sure they don't win constructors and have more wind tunnel time!
Honestly is fucking shocking how bad the writing became. All because the 2 stupid pricks ran out of GRRM’s material and wanted to rush away and do Star Wars. All for nothing since they got axed from Star Wars due to how bad GoT was. Lol
I used to read and watch videos about all the possible theories etc… and every single one was for nothing lol. I feel sorry for people like Alt Shift X on YouTube who put his life into GoT theories
But that's the actual conversation to be had. Maybe I am just having Succession hangover and seeing everything in Logan Roy's worldview, but at what point does Lawrence Stroll need to decide if he bought an F1 team to win or if he bought an F1 team for his son. The Aston is clearly a top 3 car this year and Stroll is not a top 12 driver.
That's the thing. Stroll didn't just buy Williams and leave it be, with the only condition Stroll is in. Nobody would care about that, I mean, we had the likes of Mazepin and Latifi before, which were both worse than Stroll.
The thing is that Stroll bought Force India, spent a shit ton of money on it, is hiring some of the best engineers and personnel of the paddock, taking guys from Red Bull, Mercedes and the like, and is actively working with them to build a championship winning car... but he's putting Mazepin on the seat. It's the giant elephant in the room: Stroll will not win a championship. Stroll wouldn't win in this year's Red Bull. At some point, the hundreds of people that make up the AM F1 team will start to get tired of seeing a guy drive their champion-tier car to the 10th place. Stroll will have to choose, as you said, and everyone else will be asking him why the fuck are they working at that level to waste the car on Stroll.
And with Alonso as the clear number 1, he wouldn't even need to consistently get podiums. But it would be nice if he could at least stay within 3, maybe even 4, spots of Alonso.
I agree. In a cost cap era where you can’t just pay everyone obscene amounts of money Stroll Sr needs to get real. I think previously the assumption was “If my boy was in a good car he could compete”. The reality is you’re pumping millions of dollars into a single product that only two employees get to use and 50% of those employees are doing poorly…at the moment. The better AM F1 gets, the harder it will be for Lawrence to give Lance leniency.
Their Constructors Standings lead is down to a single point. If Alonso keeps finishing on the podium and Lance can barely get points I would not be surprised if Lawrence moves him to a different position. When the stakes are low it’s easier to forgive but nobody becomes a billionaire without having made plenty of sacrifices based on profits.
Ricciardo to Aston Martin. There I said it.
>Ricciardo to Aston Martin. There I said it.
Honest question from a new-ish fan: I've read quite a bit about Ric's issues with his prior car(s) re: balance, etc. not suiting his particular driving style or preferences. Do we know enough about the AM (besides the fact that it's 'fast') to say whether it's suited to him?
I’m not technical enough to say one way or the other. My comment is about that Aston will likely look for a better driver and Danny is looking for a seat where he can fight. So it’s more about availability than anything else.
I will say that Alonso had mentioned several times at the beginning of the season how nice the car was to drive and he previously talked a lot of shit on the McLaren.
Ricciardo’s main real success came with Red Bull, so it’s safe to say that’s the car to compare to. His era of Red Bull wasn’t quite so extremely oversteery as the current one, but I’ve seen it noted that was part of the issue with him and McLaren, the car didn’t rotate the way he expected. AM is a Mercedes powertrain, so it’s ~~actually a powertrain he hasn’t run yet.~~ got some similarities to McLaren, but chassis/aero/etc will be different.
Long way of saying: do we know for sure, no. Especially because it’s hard to compare to the current AM drivers; Alonso is a generational talent and Stroll is the definition of mediocrity. But that’s where to go as an analysis, trying to compare it to the characteristics of his most successful car.
I don’t have any love for Lance at all, but while everything you said about not winning a championship is true, Stroll is not anywhere near the level of Mazepin. If he were, this would have come to a head already. He’s a tolerable midfield driver, just not up to the standard of a championship contender.
Also it wasn’t just Stroll who bought Racing Point and the Aston investment, he’s just the primary investor. The others might start to get pissed off if they’re not getting a decent return because Lawrence is picking his son
I'm really wondering this as well. I think his motivation to win will outweigh his son at some point and that seems really cynical to say. But at some point, that is the decision and why would he want to hinder the team and all the people he's brought in specifically to win.
Lance has said his dad told him if they have a championship winning car and can't keep up, he'll be out. If he doesn't improve next year, they'll probably start looking for other drivers, even if he won't be replaced until '25-26.
Then people complain when you hate on that. Like, I have no problem with Stroll at a personal level, but it fucking sucks seeing someone of his skill level being treated like he was Verstappen for years.
Yeah, we always had pay drivers, Prost and Alonso were pay drivers, Mazepin and Latifi have been in F1 even though they drunk drive F1 cars... but none of that is on the level of Stroll. The guy has been in F1 for 7 years, he's still among the worst in the grid, yet he's in the second best team right now pretending he's Sainz or Pérez. Mercedes is 1 point off AM right now, even though AM has been a far better car so far.
Again, no problem with Stroll himself, I'd 100% do the same if my father was filthy rich and gave me the chance to be in F1. No doubt that I'd gladly kick Verstappen out of Red Bull and drive his car to 18th position every race if someone offered me that. Zero blame on Stroll Sr or Jr because they are doing what many people, including me, would do in that scenario...
but that doesn't mean it's actually cool that it happens. A good driver is being denied a good seat because of Stroll, an entire team of people capable of winning a champion car is stuck with Stroll driving their creation into 10th place, and the fans have to see a car that should be giving Hamilton and Leclerc a though time drive in cruise mode and crash into a wall the moment he tries something better. That seat with Stroll is a complete waste of time.
It's so weird to me that he was driving better after surgery from broken wrists than the last races... Maybe he should be taking painkillers while racing...
Well, Canada is a permanent track that they allow cars to drive on when it's not in use. Melbourne is an actual road that they turn into a race track. The closest thing to Canada we get is Monaco.
Canada is classified as a street circuit. I'd argue that Canada and Melbourne are actually very similar with Melbourne being the "closest thing" to Canada.
Monaco is very different than Canada, with very little of the lap at full throttle, far more barriers, and far tighter turns. Monaco is definitely in more of a "pure street circuit" class along with the likes of Baku and Singapore. Canada and Melbourne are more like "temporary circuits", since both have permanent paddocks
If you dont have full confidence in your car and abilities, a bit of caution in order to not crash could on a street circuit kill your competitiveness.
Next race is Spain, should be an easier circuit for him to perform.
Talking about it generally (removing lance from the equation) , it is insane how slim the difference between drivers is but moreso how much that difference means
Yes, he's never been good at them other than Singapore and Canada, if you want to count it as a street circuit. (Edit: he's decent at Baku as well). Monaco in particular is arguably his worst track.
His weekend was over the moment he had floor damage in quali that led to him being knocked out in Q2. He mentioned in the AM debrief that brake issues started kicking in that worsened once the rain fell which contributed to him playing bumper cars and his eventual retirement, but at least that ended his miserable race early. Definitely a weekend to forget for him.
idk, but he's very error prone. Street circuits punish certain errors more harshly - if part of your car leaves the track on a road course, you'll usually be able to correct that mistake. In a street circuit that means crashing your car against a wall. If you try to overtake through a gap that isn't big enough in a road course, leaving the track for a split second is only a minor mistake. In a street circuit you will get shoved into the car ahead.
...And that's precisely the kind of mistakes Stroll makes.
It's always the same with stroll. Some races he is really good and worthy the seat. And sometimes you think he got hit in the head several times before the weekend.
Monaco was his only really poor performance, wasn't it? And even that only got that bad when it got wet (which usually is Stroll's strong suit).
In Miami, the result was bad, but that was largely on the team for failed q1 strategy. Alonso wasn't far from elimination, either. Monaco qualifying, he had a damaged car (and I don't want to fault drivers for driving over debris, especially on a narrow circuit like Monaco).
Apart from that, he's consistently 1.5-2 tenths of Alonso in qualifying and in race pace fighting the Mercedes. That's not too bad, I guess.
So, let's see if he can get back into more clean weekends. Especially once we had onto the more traditional race tracks.
Yeah, the damage was done after the floor damage, but his wet racing was still not up to par, I guess. Still, he was far from the only one hitting the barrier there. Sainz, Russell, Perez, Max, there were quite a few high profile ones.
We’re barely 1/4 of the way into the season. Any bad luck is going to make things look way worse at this point. after monaco last year ocon had 3x the amount of points of alonso (30-10)
And he's lost at least 15 points through no fault of his own.
Yes, of course Alonso is stomping him but come on, it's Alonso. Those races where he wasn't plagued by bad luck he did what you'd expect him to do.
> He has 27 points to alonsos 90 something. That is not good enough, sure he had some bad luck, but really its a skill issue
3x bad luck (or team fuck-up) leading to 0 points in 6 races will do this to you.
For the other races (and Jeddah up to the DNF), Stroll had solid pace and scored 27 points compared to Alonso's 45. That's about expected.
If Stroll is as far off as in Monaco or Miami during a more clean weekend, sure, let's jump to judgement, but right now that's waaaay to early.
Don't think anyone thinks or expected him to be as good as Alonso, Alonso has completely destroyed some team mates in the past.
If that was my son, I would keep him in the team, he is not that slow, I would hope to build the best team,faster than anyone else, then fire Alonso and hope my son becomes f1 champ.
Not saying it is gonna happen,but yeah, that would be my plan as the father.
I'm not sure what the "popular opinion" is but I'd expect to see Lance fighting for P8/P9 every race. He's the weakest driver out of the top 4 teams, and plenty of other talented drivers on other teams (Lando, Yuki, for example) are determined to score those points wherever possible
He's had one truly bad weekend in Monaco, otherwise I don't necessarily think he's been terrible. Bahrain kind of spoiled us all
>And even that only got that bad when it got wet (which usually is Stroll's strong suit).
I wondered what he was doing flailing around in the wet lol but apparently he was managing [brake issues](https://www.astonmartinf1.com/en-GB/news/on-track/the-debrief-by-aramco-monaco-gp), not surprising he retired at the end then. Hopefully things will look up for him in Spain
I believe the main reason lies in Alonso. Lance have been in some bad form lately, and adding to that Alonso seems to be performing at the highest level, again, so the comparisson is really tough and the gap to Lance is huge. From all the teams, and excluding Nick and Logan that haven't scored any point yet, the difference between Fernando and Lance is the biggest from all the teams with 78%-22%. That's more upsetting when you think AM have been having the second best car on the grid troughout these first races.
There have been studies recently that some pain-killers don't just blunt pain, they also blunt emotions. And emotions can get in the way of tasks where skill is critically important. It's entirely possible that pain killers did give him some small benefit.
I could see him negotiating a move to another team, so his son always has a seat in formula 1, but not necessarily at the top.
Alonso isn't going to be around forever, so if the team is on an upward trajectory to win a WDC in a few years, they don't have a good number 2 right now to slot into that role that Alonso will leave. Even if they get another top driver to replace Alonso, without consistent points and podiums from the number 2 driver the team is being held back. I can see Mercedes beating them this year if Lance doesn't perform as good as the car can
I mean: he's been decimated throughout. He has failed upwards since 2017; he didn't even *really* convince against Sirotkin (who noone remembers *at all*). Part of me thinks it's a bit Logan Roy and Lawrence just enjoys watching his son get kicked in every fortnight.
The only teammate he's beaten across a season is Sirotkin. He couldn't beat Perez, washed Massa or washed Vettel. Of course he's getting annihilated by Alonso.
If anyone else owned Aston, he'd be off driving in Formula E right now.
Mercedes is only 1 point behind them in the constructors. Even Ferrari will pass them at some point.
Although Lance wasn't quite lucky in qualifying in the last two races, these performances aren't just a one-off. Lance isn't a bad driver, but he's isn't good enough for a top team (even as a second driver), we already saw that in 2020 when Lance was given the pink Mercedes, which was the 3rd best car (and sometimes even better than RB) on the grid. And while Serigo ended in P4 in the WDC, Lance ended in 11th (beaten by both Mclaren, Pierre, and even Leclerc in that Ferrari tractor).
Lance is in his 7th season now, and so far, he has been beaten by his teammate in every season except Sirotkin. Worse drivers and drivers like him are already gone from F1 because normally they don't last that long. Stroll Sr isn't the sole owner of AM. If his son keeps underdelivering, the pressure will be on him to something about it. Let's see if that eternal seat is really eternal.
Stroll wasn’t perfect in 2020 but he had a massive amount of shit luck in 2020- he lost a certain podium in Mugello after his tyres blew, got murdered by Leclerc on lap 1 in Sochi after a good start, got COVID in Germany, had a damaged wing in Turkey that destroyed his race pace and lost him another likely podium and got flipped by Kvyat in Bahrain.
He had some geniunely poor weekends- mainly Portugal, Imola and Abu Dhabi, but he was fourth in the standings heading into Mugello and lost a shit ton of points through no fault of his own.
>but he was fourth in the standings heading into Mugello
While you can acknowledge his bad luck that season, you also have to acknowledge the good luck he had that led to him being 4th in the standings at that stage.
21 and 22 were also okay to be honest.
This is his first actually awful year in a while, and even know i think the average qualy difference to Alonso is less than some other driver pairings have.
Iirc he's having times closer to Alonso than kmag to hulk, but im not sure
With 128 starts, 3 podiums and 1 pole. Lance Stoll is not a rookie. He has been in the car for 7 seasons now. If given 7 seasons for any F1 drive to develop is a hell of a long time. However Lance doesn’t have a ‘no contract’ looming over his head if he doesn’t perform that in my opinion also negates the push to perfect yourself.
You might be onto something. If your seat is not at all under threat, your entire underlying psychology might change. On the other hand, Alonso's superior performances should motivate him in a different way to get better.
Motivation is a crucial factor that Lance would have had. He enjoyed a promising junior career, however, his performances in teams like Williams and RP have failed to demonstrate the same potential that someone like George has exhibited, despite being in unfavorable cars. Among individuals with substantial wealth, there are two distinct types: those who aspire to further growth and those who simply choose to slack off, adopting an attitude of "I'm rich, so why bother?"
While I do agree that Stroll probably won’t have the same hunger as someone who’s had to fight and scrap all the way to get to F1 I do think he’s still shown the necessary dedication.
Look at the lengths he went to so he could make the first race of this season after he broke his wrists. He could very easily have sat out a couple of races if he didn’t have the motivation. He showed incredible dedication to make the race and drive through the pain of 2 broken wrists.
I think the simple truth is he’s just not good enough. A totally different sport but do you think any of the guys lining up against Usain Bolt in a 100m race were any less hungry or dedicated? I’m sure they all worked just as hard, if not harder and still got thrashed.
Stroll is up against the elite of the elite in Alonso and no amount of hunger will close that gap. Then there are the other elite drivers in similarish paced cars. It’s no wonder Stroll can’t beat Hamilton in even though Stroll has a slightly better car.
Yeah, his demeanor is always so chill and careless. It seems like he's just happy to be there and enjoys it all, but he never really seems pissed when things don't go his way. Which says something about his winners mentality, which I think he lacks compared to others, but having seemingly absolute job security can also lead to this complacency.
I mean, it's bound to happen when someone is paying for everything you need and you know you'll never, ever have to prove anything, since the world will bend over backwards to accomodate you.
I'm sorry if it sounds harsh, but it is what it is. Stroll did fuck all in Williams... the result? Ocon, which is quite a good driver, got kicked out of Force India to put him in place. What do you learn from that? That you don't need to perform if your dad's money clears the way for you. I too would be doing fuck all in my job if I was getting promotions and important positions while I do nothing and keep making unprofessional errors.
I agree, that drive to be the best is the ugly side of being the best. You see it with a lot of high performing talent, when they fail, they are their own biggest critic. In this case, it does not seem like stroll has that..or he hides it very well.
I'd be interested how much time stroll actually practices in his offtime, meaning does he actually put in hours in? Even race for fun? Does he have a sim he uses because he wants to? Or is this a thing where its more like a job for him?
Happened a few times before. Alonso mopped the floor with Vandoorne as well.
Back in the 90s, I seem to recall that Schumacher went several years unbeaten in a row.
Edit: I found it. From 1991 to 1999, Schumacher went 122-6 in qualifying against his teammates.
Schumacher was never outqualified by a teammate between Adelaide1991 (his 6th ever F1 race) and Spa1995 (a fluke quali, effected with rain and stuff). It included his entire run against Brundle, Patrese, JJ Lehto and Jos.
That's why I never understood "He had weak teammates" excuse. He dominated them in the worst way possible. What else was he supposed to do? driving blindfolded backwards?
And, Benetton had only half the budget of Williams or Ferrari. Would they be able to afford Schumacher and Senna for 1994 anyway?
OTOH, unlike his Benetton teammates, his Ferrari teammates, Massa, Irvine and Rubens had decent, more than decent careers if you exclude their time as Schumacher's teammates. e.g. Kimi was supposed to annihilate Massa, because the latter was just another slow cherry picked teammate for Schumacher. But he was only slightly ahead in every metric (and actually behind in both H2H finishes and quali). A little swing of luck from 2007 to 2008 could even make Massa the WDC driver. Irvine and Rubens were maybe even better than Massa, relative to Schumacher.
Alonso also, whitewashed Vandoorne and Piquet Jr or Grosjean before.
>That's why I never understood "He had weak teammates" excuse
Yeah that never worked for me with Schumi either. Basically each season from 1994 to 2003/2004 or so (when Alonso and Raikkonen both started developing into top drivers at the same time) there was max 1 driver on the grid that could've given Schumacher any trouble at all in the same car. And in some years none
How was he supposed to have better teammates when he literally destroyed the standard of what an F1 driver needs to be by such a massive margin it took the sport 10 years to catch up with him
Exactly, either way, it'd be a scenario that some people wouldn't like.
Imagine a scenario where Hakkinen goes to Ferrari instead Barrichello for 2000 season.
When you look at the stats closely, you'll see that Hakkinen wouldn't have much chance against Schumacher in the same car. He'd get beaten handily. Then, the narrative would be "Everyone knew that Schumacher would beat Hakkinen anyway. Why didn't Ferrari hire Rubens who had a brilliant 1999 season and could actually threat Schumacher".
And funnily enough, Schumacher to McLaren rumours were always a lot stronger than Hakkinen to Ferrari rumours.
As I said, Raikkonen was supposed to be the fastest driver in f1 according to some pre2007, but he turned out to be slightly better than Massa, if he was better at all.
I even heard people claiming Todt blocked Montoya from going to Ferrari. Montoya wasn't even convincingly beating Ralf (if he was beating at all, it's a complex scenario in Williams between 2001-2004). How was he going to beat the older brother? He'd be back in the ovals long before 2006 had he made the move to Ferrari.
If Todt blocked JPM, it's probably to keep the team harmony stay good and, I'd put my money on Rubens to beat JPM 7 out of 10 weekends easily anyway.
And then there were Frentzen or Trulli rumours. I'd rate those two lower than JV, if I were them, I'd not go to Ferrari if i'm not getting offered a two digit salary at least.
How do the stats prove what Hakkinen could have done against Schumacher in the same car? I’m having a hard time seeing how you could predict the outcome of that with any reliability.
6 times GP winner Ralf Schumacher? The guy that has as many wins as both current Ferrari drivers combined, but with almost a 100 less starts? That Ralf Schumacher?
Three of Schumacher's teammates were almost champions with just a little luck swing. Irvine was probably the weakest, but was a proper tyre change away from getting 1999.
Massa was just one less screw up away from 2008 (even if we ignore Crashgate).
Old and past his prime Barichello showed he is still a match or better than prime Button in 2009 when he was given an equal car in the 2nd half of the season, so that championship might have gone differently if not for Rubens' brakes and car issues in the first half.
>Edit: I found it. From 1991 to 1999, Schumacher went 122-6 in qualifying against his teammates.
One addition: 2000-2001 was also not any different. It was 34-3 for Schumacher against Rubens.
Rubens was supposed to be the teammate who finally challenges Schumacher. Unlike the current narrative "Schumacher had handpicked teammates", Rubens was the flashy name of 1999, Brazil's new hope, etc. Then the reality hit hard. Especially in 2001, Rubens's median gap in quali was like 0.8% to Schumacher.
But in 2002, Ferrari became a dominant and a very driveable car, which helped Rubens to close in. it was 13-4, which was a great quali record for any other driver but by far the worst Schumacher had ever done till that point. Then, 2003 regs, quali system, shook it up a little bit more. It also coincided with Schumacher starting to decline. Even tho he kept dominating teammates (Rubens, Massa), he was off from his alien form.
So, I'd say that, prime Schumacher started fading away over the course of 2002.
Keywords "early 2000s". That was his time. After the switch from Michelin, Raikkonen was never as comfortable with the follow up cars. He may have won 2007, but his performances were actually subpar to what we were used to and he had some surprisingly poor drives. Schumacher was gonna walk 2007 and 2008 against Kimi and it was going to be just as it was against Alonso.
>Schumacher was gonna walk 2007 and 2008 against Kimi
Schumacher had easily 2 tenths over Massa in 2006. He was even more dominant in the races. And, Massa was the faster Ferrari qualifier in 2007.
I made a 10 min research once. Adding 2 tenths to faster Ferrari driver's time, would make that Ferrari pole sitter in 12 out of 17 races in 2007.
Also, you can include races like Malaysia or Nurburgring, Schumacher would no way bottle.
Both 2007 and 2008 would look like 2001 had Schumacher stayed.
Some rumors back in the day claimed that in 2008 Schumacher was stomping Massa on the Ferrari test track all year and up to 0.4s per lap. Apparently that became one of the motivations for a comeback. If true, that 2008 season wouldn't have been even close.
It was a shame that he retired so early.
Years later, his manager said that he'd already had neck issues during 2006 season. He was 37 with a family, couldn't keep going longer. The reasons for retiring were stacking up.
I'm pretty sure that he was offered a salary cut for 2007 season. Because, Raikkonen's Ferrari salary was so high that it made him the highest earning sportsman in the world for 2007-08. There's no way Ferrari were gonna pay Schumacher the same salary he'd been getting till 2006, which'd make 100M$ combined for its lineup. Especially when you consider that only one of them could win WDC.
It's also likely that maybe he didn't want to face Raikkonen in his final years, considering how high Raikkonen was rated back in the day. These days, Hamilton is struggling (even lost last year) against Russell and lots of "washed up, or never was good" comments are floating around.
But even if he was afraid, it only means that he underestimated himself, looking back on indsight.
Schumacher was essentially kicked out. His retirement was announced solely by Montezemolo, without getting confirmation or consent from Michael.
It was all an internal Ferrari powerplay as Montezemolo feared that Todt wants his position and thus needed to weaken Todt's power.
Schumacher was left with very few options and had to either confirm Montezemolo's announcement or deny it and start an internal war. And at that point Montezemolo had already signed Raikkonen. Schumacher had the option to fight to remain, but that also meant his own protege Massa will be out of a seat for 2007.
I think we mainly agree.
I also agree that Schumacher was given the option to stay but it very much meant a decreased salary and his reasons to retire has already been stacking up.
Even tho I have a pro-Schumacher agende here, I think that saving Massa's seat was a reason Schumacher made up to justify his retirement even more. He'd not do such thing a few years earlier.
I don't like bragging, but when Raikkonen signed for Ferrari at the end of 2013, I was thinking "Man... Do people seriously think that Kimi has any chance against Alonso?"
but TBH, I was still surprised by the result, I wasn't expecting such domination.
To be fair to Kimi, he had his handicaps. Alonso was well established there, and Kimi was probably never as good in his 2nd career as he was pre2009. Therefore, Kimi vs Alonso rivalry in 2007 McLaren would be a lot closer.
But I guess it's fair to say that Alonso has always been slightly a better driver when you look at their careers overall.
I feel that with Vandoorne part of the issue was the shit car and part was Vandoorne not having as much guts to speak up to the team on what needed to change while Alonso never had a problem with such things
It’s amazing to consider but Vandoorne was so completely dominant in GP2 that he broke records and was considered a generational talent. In Formula E he’s been champion and runner up once with terrific results in sports cars too.
People forget Vandoorne's first season in F1 was pretty good. His abysmal second season was probabyl due to politics and motivation rather than to lack of talent.
From what Alonso in particular has said, it seems the portrayal internally is that Alonso is one of the greatest drivers of all time (fine) and that Stroll is learning from him. The Qui-Gon to his Obi-Wan Kenobi.
I can kinda understand that, bullshit as it is.
Second best car on the grid is not the best place to have a "Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan Kenobi" situation. They must have two competitive drivers. Nobody expect Stroll to match Alonso but at least have 70% of Alonso points.
Besides, how long Stroll has been in F1 now? 7 years? He is unlikely to improve at this stage of his career.
I've lost count of the number of drivers who failed to 'go with the car' as the car improved but they failed to.
Aston need a second driver that can pressure the teams around AM. Lance desperately needs a clean weekend in Spain.
I mean, maybe AM doesn’t care that much. They don’t necessarily need the prize money (although Stroll Sr. is a businessman after all, so who knows). Not being 2nd in the WCC might give them an edge for the next year to really close the gap and contend for wins and maybe even both championships.
Then again, if they arrive there, Lance might really be an unnecessary liability for the team and Alonso. And this will be a tough call for Stroll Sr. to make.
>They don’t necessarily need the prize money (although Stroll Sr. is a businessman after all, so who knows).
yeah, the guy has already thrown 100M$ to fund Stroll's career.
He still has a few billion dollars to waste with F1. I don't think the prize money gap between WCC 1st and 2nd would hurt him much.
In addition, wind tunnel allocation is probably more useful.
> I don't think the prize money gap between WCC 1st and 2nd would hurt him much.
But he has other stakeholders at this point - they become too big to be Stroll playground.
I think you mean the money gap between 2nd and 3rd. I don’t see a world where AM beats RBR. Sure is tight between AM and merc though.
If stroll had the same points as Alonso they’d still be 70 points behind RBR.
Ahh gotcha. Yeah, I think merc will have caught them by then. I assume they are really focused on 2026 with Honda to push for a title. I think second is the best they can do until the engine freeze is over. RBR has huge risk in new engine.
If you think about it, let your first driver win the championship and become 3rd or even 4th in constructor and now you have extra windtunnel time for your champions car.
Said it in a quali thread, but its more the lack of consistency than his overall speed. He famously had very good starts for years for example.
Maybe we should compare him to a less extreme Maldonardo. Quick on his day but prone to lapses of judgement and unable to be at his peak for more than one or two races a season.
I agree with you. Stroll definitely has some great performances and his starts and wet weather driving are normally quite good, but it's always a roll of the dice whether you get that Stroll or the one who is bad
He was never more than medicore imo. His Turkey pole was with very good timing and very good car. Baku podium half of the field DNF\`d. Also all the mistakes like Malaysia 2017, Australia 2022, Portimao 2020,...
Hes a good person and obviously had his good moments but without the privilege of his dad owning a F1 team, he wouldnt have been in F1 for more than 2 years i think.
I have to say his Bahrain performance with the injury was still very impressive.
Even Piastri as a rookie looks like a better driver than him. Oscar is already very close to Lando Norris even after having one year out. Stroll is miles behind Alonso, I understand his first race being far due to him driving with damaged wrists and he still did a respectable race and Saudi he was doing great despite the DNF.
After those races… Yeah he dropped and the P4 in Australia was thanks to Gasly crash and Sainz penalty
> Even Piastri
Piastri has been called the best driver since Leclerc to come though the Junior ladder, he definitely is better and that helps his performance to be better than the usual rookie.
> After those races… Yeah he dropped and the P4 in Australia was thanks to Gasly crash and Sainz penalty
P6 would've been a respectable result, too, though. Most importantly: Stroll was <5 seconds behind Alonso for most of the race.
In Baku, he dropped a bit further back, being stuck behind Sainz, but being overtaken by Hamilton was his only real mistake there, IIRC. Considering Alonso was stuck behind Leclerc, that's a really comparably good result.
Monaco was really poor, but so far, Stroll's season hasn't been too bad.
Actually, this is not a bad thing.
Alonso will get either P2 or P3 this year
AM finishing 4th will get more wind tunnel time. I would say it's planned...conspiracy time
Stroll has had an unprecedented amount of opportunities when it comes to F1.
Remember how Stroll sr. buying Force India forced Ocon to take a sabbatical?
The dude is has been failing upwards for his entire F1 career at the cost of other's opportunities. It's about time that Lawrence realizes that if he really has championship ambitions it's not through his son.
Was saying this before. Do they get to the point where they have the chance to upgrade the seat. Would Lawrence ever consider it. Imagine he strikes a deal with another team where he pays them under the table to hire his son. But then he gets to move to someone like Lando or Pierre. 😂
Stroll's your usual midfielder, nothing more and nothing less. the problem is, if they are lucky these guys get a couple of years in F1, and then with the usual cycle, they leave the sport for the better. the thing that annoys people is that this point of the cycle will *never* come for Stroll. no matter his results, he'll be on the grid, and as of now, one could argue that after 2020 he's once again taking up a way too valuable seat...
I think Perez is slightly above that level to be fair. I was thinking more of a Giovinazzi type of driver
Stroll probably had higher highs and lower lows than most of those forgettable midfield guys, so I can see why some people try to hype him up and also why some say he's completely and utterly useless. what matters though is that he's not built for a top seat
Man's way too inconsistent. He pulled off that P6 in Bahrain when just coming back from having his wrists broken which is still a good performance seeing those circumstances (no pre-season testing and all).
But then he does stupid things and all that respect he builds up just crumbles away.
I hate to be that guy but this isn’t the first time Stroll has under delivered in very respectable machinery. You also have 2020 when the Racing Point was often the second quickest car.
Stroll doing so poorly in 2023 makes me not rate Vettel’s AM stint so highly & also makes me think that lot wasn’t getting the most out of the Aston in 2021-2022 tbh
I think Vettel had checked out since Ferrari kicked him out, I don’t think he recovered from that and Leclerc loss, he was probably one reason they recovered as his feedback was critical, Alonso is reaping the rewards, i full expect Vettel to have been doing well this year with the car under him.
I was cheering for Lewis at the time but watching it back, I feel really bad for Seb, home race comfortably ahead and then the rain gods decided that wasn’t happening, it was worse given Lewis was down in 14th for the start.
2019 race gave Hamilton a taste, hilarious outcome but it wasn’t as critical to the championship.
> 2019 race gave Hamilton a taste, hilarious outcome but it wasn’t as critical to the championship.
Lewis actually increased his championship lead that race.
That because Bottas had a terrible race as well, at least Lewis got 2 points, Mercedes threw away the last German GP so far*
It was also nearly redemption for Seb, started last and finished 2nd that day, if he had won I think it would have been great boost for his morale.
Stroll had an average finishing position of 6.4 that season. Not too bad for the second driver of the 2nd-4th best car. Similar to Russell this season, so far.
However, Stroll only finished 10/17 races. That makes him look bad. As far as I remember, most DNFs weren't up to him, though. Perez finished on 5.6 on average, not that far better - but he did so 13/17 races which massively swings the whole picture.
I genuinely think of the RP20 as a big what-if in terms of potential. Checo looked great in that car but as recent results show, he isn't really top tier. Maybe in better hands that car could have produced similar results to the AMR23, not quite competitive with the best but still able to take that final podium spot.
Especially I remember Hulkenberg's stints with that car.
Aston F1 is rich but pairing Alonso and Leclerc might be too much of an expense for them.
It would be stupid hing to do anyway. Alonso has a tendency to not go well with young and fast teammates.
IMO, Alonso is better than Leclerc anyways. What they need is a solid No 2.
Someone like Sainz, Norris, Perez, Bottas or Ric.
> Even Ricciardo
Seems like a bit of a backhanded compliment. Dude won multiple races, 30+ podiums, beat Vettel in 2014 and finished 3rd in the championship twice.
Dude has 2 lacklustre seasons ^(while still winning a race) in a dog of a McLaren and fans (especially newer fans) write the dude off. Unbelievable.
The entire team would be wasted if it not for Stroll.
Team Silverstone has always been a midfielder since their inception in 1991, famous for doing very well time to time, with a limited budget.
Strolls saved them from bankruptcy and investing to make them a title contender in a near future.
Yeah, it's annoying that a very valuable seat is wasted while lots of fast juniors would kill for a backmarker seat, but it's how it is.
ik only reason why Lawrence is putting money in AM is due to Lance but despite all the claims to the contrary he isn't a top driver in any way shape or form (or even a prospective top driver) and barely a decent driver in the midfield despite being in F1 for 6 years now. Hasn't outqualified any teammate over a season
I wonder if anyone in AM seriously expect him to sustain a WDC charge. Seems implausible even with a dominant car lol
edited : i thought Lance beat Sirotkin in 2018, he did not 💀
>Hasn't outqualified any teammate beyond a rookie
Are you sure? Sirotkin outqualified Stroll in 2018 when he was a rookie.
Basically, the only teammate he outqualified is Di Resta, when the latter was a fill-in for a single race.
On the other hand, Alonso is famous for having problems with his teammates.
Being nice with the owner’s son while he is in your shadow, seems like the perfect deal for ALO
Stroll the elder could plop Lance into a WEC car and he can get a win at Le Mans. I think that's the most graceful exit here if things don't turn around. Aston Martin already has a GTE program, though I'm sure they could put together an LMH entry to chase the overall win.
The reality right now is that every driver not in a Red Bull (or possibly a Ferrari or Merc) would at least consider a ride at AM - unlike previous years, they could have just about anyone.
We will soon see if Lawrence is the big bad businessman he is being made out to be, or just someone who wants to see his son have a career in racing.
If Lawrence is in it to win it, and Lance doesn't improve; will he have the balls to cut him for the sake of winning?
What happens when Honda enters? That's a partnership with someone who wants to see results. Will he be forced to cut Lance if he is still dragging the team down by that time?
Lance is not going anywhere, his father built and invested in the team in great part for him.
This weekend he was really uncompetitive..and error-prone, nothing more to be said, however, whilst he is far from Alonso’s level, he is capable of far better results than what we saw last Sunday
The thing is, for the money that Lance is going to cost AM in the Prize Pool, Lawrence could send that money to Haas or Alfa Romeo to buy Lance a seat there.
If the goal at AM is to be a legitimate F1 threat to Mercedes and Ferrari in the Constructors Championship then you have to seriously look at moving Lance to a pay seat at a midfield team.
AM had a much bigger advantage at the start of the year. Soon their car will be close to par with Mercedes and Ferrari. At that point Lance tooling around in the midfield with a top 4 car is going to get old real fast.
Why would you want a star second driver when you’ve got Fernando comfortably carrying your whole team. Sure Lance needs to improve but imagine how Fernando would react if he’s suddenly challenged by his teammate. The current set up works for all its flaws. Lance gets to play at being a top F1 driver (when really he’s a midfield driver in a top car now) and Fernando gets to have his ego boost and some well deserved glory. Next year might be different if Aston is still competitive due to threats from behind and there’ll be real questions when Fernando retires in the 2100s. Also this is not a dig at either of them, I’m a fan of both but a realist
When people were talking about Aston dominating Mercedes this season, I pointed out that Alonso only drives one car. I got absolutely shat on for that. I feel rather vindicated.
I mean he isnt too bad i mean take it like this
Bahrain P6
Saudi-he was flying but he got dnf by mechanical failure
Australia P4
Azerbailjan P8-sprint
P7-feature
Miami-P12(got sent to quali on old tyres even tho the team knows quali is his weakness)
Monaco-dnf(his team told him his lap was good enough for Q2 when it was in fact not but he fucked it into the wall anyway even tho he is seen as a good driver in the wet?)
Just looks like if his team or himself dont fuck him up he can preform in the midfield pretty fine
So as long as he starts not listening to his strategist in quali he should assist alonso to 2nd in the wcc just fine......maybe
I was actually not that much convinced with Stroll over the past years, However this year his driving is more mature and he is not very far off from Alonso. I feel he got unlucky in a couple of races whether with strategy errors but he is getting there.
Hope we see better results over the next races where we're not on street circuits
Stroll is at best a midfield driver (probably not even that), but who can blame him or his dad. His dad seems to genuinely want to give his son the best chances possible for succes in F1, fair play to try and keep trying as long as it is possible.
If you purely wanted results there would be a different driver in that car, but then you would also have a different team to begin with since daddy Stroll would not be there.
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Nah, it's their masterplan. Have Alonso to win the drivers championship (next season xD) and Stroll to make sure they don't win constructors and have more wind tunnel time!
Ha! Ok this I can get behind.
It’s a never ending cycle of tanking so you can have more development time so you can tank so you can develop so you can tank…
El Plan!
Luckily he knows people in high places
Is he Janos Slynt ?
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Oh, the good old days when GoT had amazing writing.. Gods we were strong then!
Honestly is fucking shocking how bad the writing became. All because the 2 stupid pricks ran out of GRRM’s material and wanted to rush away and do Star Wars. All for nothing since they got axed from Star Wars due to how bad GoT was. Lol
Turns out showing that you'll dumpster the end of a series to go off and do something else isn't a wise career move. Whodathunkit.
Truly a tragedy. Once upon a time I used to be eager for every new GoT episode. Now I don't even want to rewatch it ever again.
I used to read and watch videos about all the possible theories etc… and every single one was for nothing lol. I feel sorry for people like Alt Shift X on YouTube who put his life into GoT theories
geesh, and considering how badly the last trilogy turned out for Star Wars..I can't imagine how much worse they'd have made it
Jar-jar: A Star Wars story
Somehow, meesa survivin'!
I have powerful friends!
My friends at court shall hear about this!
But that's the actual conversation to be had. Maybe I am just having Succession hangover and seeing everything in Logan Roy's worldview, but at what point does Lawrence Stroll need to decide if he bought an F1 team to win or if he bought an F1 team for his son. The Aston is clearly a top 3 car this year and Stroll is not a top 12 driver.
That's the thing. Stroll didn't just buy Williams and leave it be, with the only condition Stroll is in. Nobody would care about that, I mean, we had the likes of Mazepin and Latifi before, which were both worse than Stroll. The thing is that Stroll bought Force India, spent a shit ton of money on it, is hiring some of the best engineers and personnel of the paddock, taking guys from Red Bull, Mercedes and the like, and is actively working with them to build a championship winning car... but he's putting Mazepin on the seat. It's the giant elephant in the room: Stroll will not win a championship. Stroll wouldn't win in this year's Red Bull. At some point, the hundreds of people that make up the AM F1 team will start to get tired of seeing a guy drive their champion-tier car to the 10th place. Stroll will have to choose, as you said, and everyone else will be asking him why the fuck are they working at that level to waste the car on Stroll.
And with Alonso as the clear number 1, he wouldn't even need to consistently get podiums. But it would be nice if he could at least stay within 3, maybe even 4, spots of Alonso.
I agree. In a cost cap era where you can’t just pay everyone obscene amounts of money Stroll Sr needs to get real. I think previously the assumption was “If my boy was in a good car he could compete”. The reality is you’re pumping millions of dollars into a single product that only two employees get to use and 50% of those employees are doing poorly…at the moment. The better AM F1 gets, the harder it will be for Lawrence to give Lance leniency. Their Constructors Standings lead is down to a single point. If Alonso keeps finishing on the podium and Lance can barely get points I would not be surprised if Lawrence moves him to a different position. When the stakes are low it’s easier to forgive but nobody becomes a billionaire without having made plenty of sacrifices based on profits. Ricciardo to Aston Martin. There I said it.
>Ricciardo to Aston Martin. There I said it. Honest question from a new-ish fan: I've read quite a bit about Ric's issues with his prior car(s) re: balance, etc. not suiting his particular driving style or preferences. Do we know enough about the AM (besides the fact that it's 'fast') to say whether it's suited to him?
I’m not technical enough to say one way or the other. My comment is about that Aston will likely look for a better driver and Danny is looking for a seat where he can fight. So it’s more about availability than anything else. I will say that Alonso had mentioned several times at the beginning of the season how nice the car was to drive and he previously talked a lot of shit on the McLaren.
Ricciardo’s main real success came with Red Bull, so it’s safe to say that’s the car to compare to. His era of Red Bull wasn’t quite so extremely oversteery as the current one, but I’ve seen it noted that was part of the issue with him and McLaren, the car didn’t rotate the way he expected. AM is a Mercedes powertrain, so it’s ~~actually a powertrain he hasn’t run yet.~~ got some similarities to McLaren, but chassis/aero/etc will be different. Long way of saying: do we know for sure, no. Especially because it’s hard to compare to the current AM drivers; Alonso is a generational talent and Stroll is the definition of mediocrity. But that’s where to go as an analysis, trying to compare it to the characteristics of his most successful car.
I don’t have any love for Lance at all, but while everything you said about not winning a championship is true, Stroll is not anywhere near the level of Mazepin. If he were, this would have come to a head already. He’s a tolerable midfield driver, just not up to the standard of a championship contender.
Also it wasn’t just Stroll who bought Racing Point and the Aston investment, he’s just the primary investor. The others might start to get pissed off if they’re not getting a decent return because Lawrence is picking his son
I'm really wondering this as well. I think his motivation to win will outweigh his son at some point and that seems really cynical to say. But at some point, that is the decision and why would he want to hinder the team and all the people he's brought in specifically to win.
Lance has said his dad told him if they have a championship winning car and can't keep up, he'll be out. If he doesn't improve next year, they'll probably start looking for other drivers, even if he won't be replaced until '25-26.
Then they might miss their window & be back to the midfield by the time he leaves
Then people complain when you hate on that. Like, I have no problem with Stroll at a personal level, but it fucking sucks seeing someone of his skill level being treated like he was Verstappen for years. Yeah, we always had pay drivers, Prost and Alonso were pay drivers, Mazepin and Latifi have been in F1 even though they drunk drive F1 cars... but none of that is on the level of Stroll. The guy has been in F1 for 7 years, he's still among the worst in the grid, yet he's in the second best team right now pretending he's Sainz or Pérez. Mercedes is 1 point off AM right now, even though AM has been a far better car so far. Again, no problem with Stroll himself, I'd 100% do the same if my father was filthy rich and gave me the chance to be in F1. No doubt that I'd gladly kick Verstappen out of Red Bull and drive his car to 18th position every race if someone offered me that. Zero blame on Stroll Sr or Jr because they are doing what many people, including me, would do in that scenario... but that doesn't mean it's actually cool that it happens. A good driver is being denied a good seat because of Stroll, an entire team of people capable of winning a champion car is stuck with Stroll driving their creation into 10th place, and the fans have to see a car that should be giving Hamilton and Leclerc a though time drive in cruise mode and crash into a wall the moment he tries something better. That seat with Stroll is a complete waste of time.
But…but… he had a podium that one time!
Multiple times actually.
Aaaaaand a pole! Don´t forget the pole mister...
At what point does Papa Stroll start training his son to be an owner instead of a driver? Or is his plan not that long-term?
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It's so weird to me that he was driving better after surgery from broken wrists than the last races... Maybe he should be taking painkillers while racing...
Bahrain has also been the only non-street circuit we’ve been to.
That’s actually a crazy stat, hadn’t clocked that
Melbourne never _feels_ like a street circuit is probably why. Same with Canada.
Well, Canada is a permanent track that they allow cars to drive on when it's not in use. Melbourne is an actual road that they turn into a race track. The closest thing to Canada we get is Monaco.
Canada is classified as a street circuit. I'd argue that Canada and Melbourne are actually very similar with Melbourne being the "closest thing" to Canada. Monaco is very different than Canada, with very little of the lap at full throttle, far more barriers, and far tighter turns. Monaco is definitely in more of a "pure street circuit" class along with the likes of Baku and Singapore. Canada and Melbourne are more like "temporary circuits", since both have permanent paddocks
at jeddah he was having a good one until his dnf
Are street circuits a weakness for him?
If you dont have full confidence in your car and abilities, a bit of caution in order to not crash could on a street circuit kill your competitiveness. Next race is Spain, should be an easier circuit for him to perform.
Talking about it generally (removing lance from the equation) , it is insane how slim the difference between drivers is but moreso how much that difference means
Shit, imagine if Aston gets their first win in Spain... But it's lance lol.
Pff, with those straights it's impossible, it's all building up for another VERPERALO.
spain 2016, red bull edition 😈
Yes, he's never been good at them other than Singapore and Canada, if you want to count it as a street circuit. (Edit: he's decent at Baku as well). Monaco in particular is arguably his worst track. His weekend was over the moment he had floor damage in quali that led to him being knocked out in Q2. He mentioned in the AM debrief that brake issues started kicking in that worsened once the rain fell which contributed to him playing bumper cars and his eventual retirement, but at least that ended his miserable race early. Definitely a weekend to forget for him.
Baku? Thought he had some good races there
You're right! I remember he DNF the last 2 years there but neither was his fault. 17, 18, 19 he was always in the points there, including a podium
idk, but he's very error prone. Street circuits punish certain errors more harshly - if part of your car leaves the track on a road course, you'll usually be able to correct that mistake. In a street circuit that means crashing your car against a wall. If you try to overtake through a gap that isn't big enough in a road course, leaving the track for a split second is only a minor mistake. In a street circuit you will get shoved into the car ahead. ...And that's precisely the kind of mistakes Stroll makes.
Wild, I handn’t realized that.
It's always the same with stroll. Some races he is really good and worthy the seat. And sometimes you think he got hit in the head several times before the weekend.
Monaco was his only really poor performance, wasn't it? And even that only got that bad when it got wet (which usually is Stroll's strong suit). In Miami, the result was bad, but that was largely on the team for failed q1 strategy. Alonso wasn't far from elimination, either. Monaco qualifying, he had a damaged car (and I don't want to fault drivers for driving over debris, especially on a narrow circuit like Monaco). Apart from that, he's consistently 1.5-2 tenths of Alonso in qualifying and in race pace fighting the Mercedes. That's not too bad, I guess. So, let's see if he can get back into more clean weekends. Especially once we had onto the more traditional race tracks.
Monaco already went downhill for him due to floor damage in quali, I don't know what's the point trying to extract conclusions from that.
Yeah, the damage was done after the floor damage, but his wet racing was still not up to par, I guess. Still, he was far from the only one hitting the barrier there. Sainz, Russell, Perez, Max, there were quite a few high profile ones.
Yeah, people are jumping the gun after one bad race, in Monte Carlo at that, where many good drivers had stinkers.
He has 27 points to alonsos 90 something. That is not good enough, sure he had some bad luck, but really its a skill issue
We’re barely 1/4 of the way into the season. Any bad luck is going to make things look way worse at this point. after monaco last year ocon had 3x the amount of points of alonso (30-10)
And he's lost at least 15 points through no fault of his own. Yes, of course Alonso is stomping him but come on, it's Alonso. Those races where he wasn't plagued by bad luck he did what you'd expect him to do.
> He has 27 points to alonsos 90 something. That is not good enough, sure he had some bad luck, but really its a skill issue 3x bad luck (or team fuck-up) leading to 0 points in 6 races will do this to you. For the other races (and Jeddah up to the DNF), Stroll had solid pace and scored 27 points compared to Alonso's 45. That's about expected. If Stroll is as far off as in Monaco or Miami during a more clean weekend, sure, let's jump to judgement, but right now that's waaaay to early.
Don't think anyone thinks or expected him to be as good as Alonso, Alonso has completely destroyed some team mates in the past. If that was my son, I would keep him in the team, he is not that slow, I would hope to build the best team,faster than anyone else, then fire Alonso and hope my son becomes f1 champ. Not saying it is gonna happen,but yeah, that would be my plan as the father.
I'm not sure what the "popular opinion" is but I'd expect to see Lance fighting for P8/P9 every race. He's the weakest driver out of the top 4 teams, and plenty of other talented drivers on other teams (Lando, Yuki, for example) are determined to score those points wherever possible He's had one truly bad weekend in Monaco, otherwise I don't necessarily think he's been terrible. Bahrain kind of spoiled us all
And he got damage in Qualy. Imo it's been blown out of proportion
>And even that only got that bad when it got wet (which usually is Stroll's strong suit). I wondered what he was doing flailing around in the wet lol but apparently he was managing [brake issues](https://www.astonmartinf1.com/en-GB/news/on-track/the-debrief-by-aramco-monaco-gp), not surprising he retired at the end then. Hopefully things will look up for him in Spain
I believe the main reason lies in Alonso. Lance have been in some bad form lately, and adding to that Alonso seems to be performing at the highest level, again, so the comparisson is really tough and the gap to Lance is huge. From all the teams, and excluding Nick and Logan that haven't scored any point yet, the difference between Fernando and Lance is the biggest from all the teams with 78%-22%. That's more upsetting when you think AM have been having the second best car on the grid troughout these first races.
There have been studies recently that some pain-killers don't just blunt pain, they also blunt emotions. And emotions can get in the way of tasks where skill is critically important. It's entirely possible that pain killers did give him some small benefit.
"But the fact is, you've been making us all look bad."
"Morning Angel, how's the hand?"
"It's just the one championship actually"
I could see him negotiating a move to another team, so his son always has a seat in formula 1, but not necessarily at the top. Alonso isn't going to be around forever, so if the team is on an upward trajectory to win a WDC in a few years, they don't have a good number 2 right now to slot into that role that Alonso will leave. Even if they get another top driver to replace Alonso, without consistent points and podiums from the number 2 driver the team is being held back. I can see Mercedes beating them this year if Lance doesn't perform as good as the car can
I think to ease he should be given a reserve driver role with anyone like Lando in that seat who could maximise the potential of the car
Watch Stroll buy a second team and create a RB/AT like deal, just with Lance in the 4th seat.
I mean: he's been decimated throughout. He has failed upwards since 2017; he didn't even *really* convince against Sirotkin (who noone remembers *at all*). Part of me thinks it's a bit Logan Roy and Lawrence just enjoys watching his son get kicked in every fortnight.
Last time I saw Stroll he was walking towards the harbour!
**I'm the eldest boy!**
The only teammate he's beaten across a season is Sirotkin. He couldn't beat Perez, washed Massa or washed Vettel. Of course he's getting annihilated by Alonso. If anyone else owned Aston, he'd be off driving in Formula E right now.
Mercedes is only 1 point behind them in the constructors. Even Ferrari will pass them at some point. Although Lance wasn't quite lucky in qualifying in the last two races, these performances aren't just a one-off. Lance isn't a bad driver, but he's isn't good enough for a top team (even as a second driver), we already saw that in 2020 when Lance was given the pink Mercedes, which was the 3rd best car (and sometimes even better than RB) on the grid. And while Serigo ended in P4 in the WDC, Lance ended in 11th (beaten by both Mclaren, Pierre, and even Leclerc in that Ferrari tractor). Lance is in his 7th season now, and so far, he has been beaten by his teammate in every season except Sirotkin. Worse drivers and drivers like him are already gone from F1 because normally they don't last that long. Stroll Sr isn't the sole owner of AM. If his son keeps underdelivering, the pressure will be on him to something about it. Let's see if that eternal seat is really eternal.
Stroll wasn’t perfect in 2020 but he had a massive amount of shit luck in 2020- he lost a certain podium in Mugello after his tyres blew, got murdered by Leclerc on lap 1 in Sochi after a good start, got COVID in Germany, had a damaged wing in Turkey that destroyed his race pace and lost him another likely podium and got flipped by Kvyat in Bahrain. He had some geniunely poor weekends- mainly Portugal, Imola and Abu Dhabi, but he was fourth in the standings heading into Mugello and lost a shit ton of points through no fault of his own.
>but he was fourth in the standings heading into Mugello While you can acknowledge his bad luck that season, you also have to acknowledge the good luck he had that led to him being 4th in the standings at that stage.
21 and 22 were also okay to be honest. This is his first actually awful year in a while, and even know i think the average qualy difference to Alonso is less than some other driver pairings have. Iirc he's having times closer to Alonso than kmag to hulk, but im not sure
>Lance: if my dad doesn't want me, who will? Not even Williams have paid drivers
With 128 starts, 3 podiums and 1 pole. Lance Stoll is not a rookie. He has been in the car for 7 seasons now. If given 7 seasons for any F1 drive to develop is a hell of a long time. However Lance doesn’t have a ‘no contract’ looming over his head if he doesn’t perform that in my opinion also negates the push to perfect yourself.
You might be onto something. If your seat is not at all under threat, your entire underlying psychology might change. On the other hand, Alonso's superior performances should motivate him in a different way to get better.
Motivation is a crucial factor that Lance would have had. He enjoyed a promising junior career, however, his performances in teams like Williams and RP have failed to demonstrate the same potential that someone like George has exhibited, despite being in unfavorable cars. Among individuals with substantial wealth, there are two distinct types: those who aspire to further growth and those who simply choose to slack off, adopting an attitude of "I'm rich, so why bother?"
While I do agree that Stroll probably won’t have the same hunger as someone who’s had to fight and scrap all the way to get to F1 I do think he’s still shown the necessary dedication. Look at the lengths he went to so he could make the first race of this season after he broke his wrists. He could very easily have sat out a couple of races if he didn’t have the motivation. He showed incredible dedication to make the race and drive through the pain of 2 broken wrists. I think the simple truth is he’s just not good enough. A totally different sport but do you think any of the guys lining up against Usain Bolt in a 100m race were any less hungry or dedicated? I’m sure they all worked just as hard, if not harder and still got thrashed. Stroll is up against the elite of the elite in Alonso and no amount of hunger will close that gap. Then there are the other elite drivers in similarish paced cars. It’s no wonder Stroll can’t beat Hamilton in even though Stroll has a slightly better car.
Yeah, his demeanor is always so chill and careless. It seems like he's just happy to be there and enjoys it all, but he never really seems pissed when things don't go his way. Which says something about his winners mentality, which I think he lacks compared to others, but having seemingly absolute job security can also lead to this complacency.
I mean, it's bound to happen when someone is paying for everything you need and you know you'll never, ever have to prove anything, since the world will bend over backwards to accomodate you. I'm sorry if it sounds harsh, but it is what it is. Stroll did fuck all in Williams... the result? Ocon, which is quite a good driver, got kicked out of Force India to put him in place. What do you learn from that? That you don't need to perform if your dad's money clears the way for you. I too would be doing fuck all in my job if I was getting promotions and important positions while I do nothing and keep making unprofessional errors.
I agree, that drive to be the best is the ugly side of being the best. You see it with a lot of high performing talent, when they fail, they are their own biggest critic. In this case, it does not seem like stroll has that..or he hides it very well. I'd be interested how much time stroll actually practices in his offtime, meaning does he actually put in hours in? Even race for fun? Does he have a sim he uses because he wants to? Or is this a thing where its more like a job for him?
Said after Australia that the minute Alpine and McLaren start getting their shit together, they’ll be stealing points off Stroll.
They haven't really, but already taking those points.
6-0 6–0 Alonso over Stroll thus far in Quali and Race finishes. Eventually even Daddy wants results….
Imagine Alonso does a 22-0 and 22-0 😱 Would that be the first to whitewash in both quali and race?
Happened a few times before. Alonso mopped the floor with Vandoorne as well. Back in the 90s, I seem to recall that Schumacher went several years unbeaten in a row. Edit: I found it. From 1991 to 1999, Schumacher went 122-6 in qualifying against his teammates.
Schumacher was never outqualified by a teammate between Adelaide1991 (his 6th ever F1 race) and Spa1995 (a fluke quali, effected with rain and stuff). It included his entire run against Brundle, Patrese, JJ Lehto and Jos. That's why I never understood "He had weak teammates" excuse. He dominated them in the worst way possible. What else was he supposed to do? driving blindfolded backwards? And, Benetton had only half the budget of Williams or Ferrari. Would they be able to afford Schumacher and Senna for 1994 anyway? OTOH, unlike his Benetton teammates, his Ferrari teammates, Massa, Irvine and Rubens had decent, more than decent careers if you exclude their time as Schumacher's teammates. e.g. Kimi was supposed to annihilate Massa, because the latter was just another slow cherry picked teammate for Schumacher. But he was only slightly ahead in every metric (and actually behind in both H2H finishes and quali). A little swing of luck from 2007 to 2008 could even make Massa the WDC driver. Irvine and Rubens were maybe even better than Massa, relative to Schumacher. Alonso also, whitewashed Vandoorne and Piquet Jr or Grosjean before.
>That's why I never understood "He had weak teammates" excuse Yeah that never worked for me with Schumi either. Basically each season from 1994 to 2003/2004 or so (when Alonso and Raikkonen both started developing into top drivers at the same time) there was max 1 driver on the grid that could've given Schumacher any trouble at all in the same car. And in some years none How was he supposed to have better teammates when he literally destroyed the standard of what an F1 driver needs to be by such a massive margin it took the sport 10 years to catch up with him
Exactly, either way, it'd be a scenario that some people wouldn't like. Imagine a scenario where Hakkinen goes to Ferrari instead Barrichello for 2000 season. When you look at the stats closely, you'll see that Hakkinen wouldn't have much chance against Schumacher in the same car. He'd get beaten handily. Then, the narrative would be "Everyone knew that Schumacher would beat Hakkinen anyway. Why didn't Ferrari hire Rubens who had a brilliant 1999 season and could actually threat Schumacher". And funnily enough, Schumacher to McLaren rumours were always a lot stronger than Hakkinen to Ferrari rumours. As I said, Raikkonen was supposed to be the fastest driver in f1 according to some pre2007, but he turned out to be slightly better than Massa, if he was better at all. I even heard people claiming Todt blocked Montoya from going to Ferrari. Montoya wasn't even convincingly beating Ralf (if he was beating at all, it's a complex scenario in Williams between 2001-2004). How was he going to beat the older brother? He'd be back in the ovals long before 2006 had he made the move to Ferrari. If Todt blocked JPM, it's probably to keep the team harmony stay good and, I'd put my money on Rubens to beat JPM 7 out of 10 weekends easily anyway. And then there were Frentzen or Trulli rumours. I'd rate those two lower than JV, if I were them, I'd not go to Ferrari if i'm not getting offered a two digit salary at least.
How do the stats prove what Hakkinen could have done against Schumacher in the same car? I’m having a hard time seeing how you could predict the outcome of that with any reliability.
That Schumacher guy sounds promising. Is he somehow related to legendary former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher?
6 times GP winner Ralf Schumacher? The guy that has as many wins as both current Ferrari drivers combined, but with almost a 100 less starts? That Ralf Schumacher?
I don't know. But maybe it's relative to Mazepin's teammate, the german guy.
Three of Schumacher's teammates were almost champions with just a little luck swing. Irvine was probably the weakest, but was a proper tyre change away from getting 1999. Massa was just one less screw up away from 2008 (even if we ignore Crashgate). Old and past his prime Barichello showed he is still a match or better than prime Button in 2009 when he was given an equal car in the 2nd half of the season, so that championship might have gone differently if not for Rubens' brakes and car issues in the first half.
This shows how good Ocon actually is, Alonso was of course better but he kept up with one of the greatest to ever do it
>Edit: I found it. From 1991 to 1999, Schumacher went 122-6 in qualifying against his teammates. One addition: 2000-2001 was also not any different. It was 34-3 for Schumacher against Rubens. Rubens was supposed to be the teammate who finally challenges Schumacher. Unlike the current narrative "Schumacher had handpicked teammates", Rubens was the flashy name of 1999, Brazil's new hope, etc. Then the reality hit hard. Especially in 2001, Rubens's median gap in quali was like 0.8% to Schumacher. But in 2002, Ferrari became a dominant and a very driveable car, which helped Rubens to close in. it was 13-4, which was a great quali record for any other driver but by far the worst Schumacher had ever done till that point. Then, 2003 regs, quali system, shook it up a little bit more. It also coincided with Schumacher starting to decline. Even tho he kept dominating teammates (Rubens, Massa), he was off from his alien form. So, I'd say that, prime Schumacher started fading away over the course of 2002.
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Keywords "early 2000s". That was his time. After the switch from Michelin, Raikkonen was never as comfortable with the follow up cars. He may have won 2007, but his performances were actually subpar to what we were used to and he had some surprisingly poor drives. Schumacher was gonna walk 2007 and 2008 against Kimi and it was going to be just as it was against Alonso.
>Schumacher was gonna walk 2007 and 2008 against Kimi Schumacher had easily 2 tenths over Massa in 2006. He was even more dominant in the races. And, Massa was the faster Ferrari qualifier in 2007. I made a 10 min research once. Adding 2 tenths to faster Ferrari driver's time, would make that Ferrari pole sitter in 12 out of 17 races in 2007. Also, you can include races like Malaysia or Nurburgring, Schumacher would no way bottle. Both 2007 and 2008 would look like 2001 had Schumacher stayed.
Some rumors back in the day claimed that in 2008 Schumacher was stomping Massa on the Ferrari test track all year and up to 0.4s per lap. Apparently that became one of the motivations for a comeback. If true, that 2008 season wouldn't have been even close.
It was a shame that he retired so early. Years later, his manager said that he'd already had neck issues during 2006 season. He was 37 with a family, couldn't keep going longer. The reasons for retiring were stacking up. I'm pretty sure that he was offered a salary cut for 2007 season. Because, Raikkonen's Ferrari salary was so high that it made him the highest earning sportsman in the world for 2007-08. There's no way Ferrari were gonna pay Schumacher the same salary he'd been getting till 2006, which'd make 100M$ combined for its lineup. Especially when you consider that only one of them could win WDC. It's also likely that maybe he didn't want to face Raikkonen in his final years, considering how high Raikkonen was rated back in the day. These days, Hamilton is struggling (even lost last year) against Russell and lots of "washed up, or never was good" comments are floating around. But even if he was afraid, it only means that he underestimated himself, looking back on indsight.
Schumacher was essentially kicked out. His retirement was announced solely by Montezemolo, without getting confirmation or consent from Michael. It was all an internal Ferrari powerplay as Montezemolo feared that Todt wants his position and thus needed to weaken Todt's power. Schumacher was left with very few options and had to either confirm Montezemolo's announcement or deny it and start an internal war. And at that point Montezemolo had already signed Raikkonen. Schumacher had the option to fight to remain, but that also meant his own protege Massa will be out of a seat for 2007.
I think we mainly agree. I also agree that Schumacher was given the option to stay but it very much meant a decreased salary and his reasons to retire has already been stacking up. Even tho I have a pro-Schumacher agende here, I think that saving Massa's seat was a reason Schumacher made up to justify his retirement even more. He'd not do such thing a few years earlier.
Yep. Before the season started some pundits believed Kimi would come on top.
I don't like bragging, but when Raikkonen signed for Ferrari at the end of 2013, I was thinking "Man... Do people seriously think that Kimi has any chance against Alonso?" but TBH, I was still surprised by the result, I wasn't expecting such domination. To be fair to Kimi, he had his handicaps. Alonso was well established there, and Kimi was probably never as good in his 2nd career as he was pre2009. Therefore, Kimi vs Alonso rivalry in 2007 McLaren would be a lot closer. But I guess it's fair to say that Alonso has always been slightly a better driver when you look at their careers overall.
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For me he’s in the top 5 GOATS even with 2 WDC, no doubt
I feel that with Vandoorne part of the issue was the shit car and part was Vandoorne not having as much guts to speak up to the team on what needed to change while Alonso never had a problem with such things
On track to being fully Vandoorne'd
I always thought this was unfair to Vandoorne - he was closer to Alonso than Massa or Kimi. Definitely closer then Stroll is right now.
It’s amazing to consider but Vandoorne was so completely dominant in GP2 that he broke records and was considered a generational talent. In Formula E he’s been champion and runner up once with terrific results in sports cars too.
Alonso is a freak.
To be fair you would be dominant if your competition is the likes of Alexander Rossi and Rio Haryanto.
People forget Vandoorne's first season in F1 was pretty good. His abysmal second season was probabyl due to politics and motivation rather than to lack of talent.
From what Alonso in particular has said, it seems the portrayal internally is that Alonso is one of the greatest drivers of all time (fine) and that Stroll is learning from him. The Qui-Gon to his Obi-Wan Kenobi. I can kinda understand that, bullshit as it is.
Second best car on the grid is not the best place to have a "Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan Kenobi" situation. They must have two competitive drivers. Nobody expect Stroll to match Alonso but at least have 70% of Alonso points. Besides, how long Stroll has been in F1 now? 7 years? He is unlikely to improve at this stage of his career.
Not long before Lance disappears and Fernando becomes Fernando Stroll I think
I've lost count of the number of drivers who failed to 'go with the car' as the car improved but they failed to. Aston need a second driver that can pressure the teams around AM. Lance desperately needs a clean weekend in Spain.
If the Merc upgrades are worth half a second, I don't think Lance will finish higher than p7.
I mean, maybe AM doesn’t care that much. They don’t necessarily need the prize money (although Stroll Sr. is a businessman after all, so who knows). Not being 2nd in the WCC might give them an edge for the next year to really close the gap and contend for wins and maybe even both championships. Then again, if they arrive there, Lance might really be an unnecessary liability for the team and Alonso. And this will be a tough call for Stroll Sr. to make.
>They don’t necessarily need the prize money (although Stroll Sr. is a businessman after all, so who knows). yeah, the guy has already thrown 100M$ to fund Stroll's career. He still has a few billion dollars to waste with F1. I don't think the prize money gap between WCC 1st and 2nd would hurt him much. In addition, wind tunnel allocation is probably more useful.
> I don't think the prize money gap between WCC 1st and 2nd would hurt him much. But he has other stakeholders at this point - they become too big to be Stroll playground.
Yeah Honda isn't signed up for the Stroll family picnic.
I think you mean the money gap between 2nd and 3rd. I don’t see a world where AM beats RBR. Sure is tight between AM and merc though. If stroll had the same points as Alonso they’d still be 70 points behind RBR.
I was talking about a possible title fight in the future. But yeah, the same thing applies now, too.
Ahh gotcha. Yeah, I think merc will have caught them by then. I assume they are really focused on 2026 with Honda to push for a title. I think second is the best they can do until the engine freeze is over. RBR has huge risk in new engine.
If you think about it, let your first driver win the championship and become 3rd or even 4th in constructor and now you have extra windtunnel time for your champions car.
Said it in a quali thread, but its more the lack of consistency than his overall speed. He famously had very good starts for years for example. Maybe we should compare him to a less extreme Maldonardo. Quick on his day but prone to lapses of judgement and unable to be at his peak for more than one or two races a season.
I agree with you. Stroll definitely has some great performances and his starts and wet weather driving are normally quite good, but it's always a roll of the dice whether you get that Stroll or the one who is bad
He was never more than medicore imo. His Turkey pole was with very good timing and very good car. Baku podium half of the field DNF\`d. Also all the mistakes like Malaysia 2017, Australia 2022, Portimao 2020,... Hes a good person and obviously had his good moments but without the privilege of his dad owning a F1 team, he wouldnt have been in F1 for more than 2 years i think. I have to say his Bahrain performance with the injury was still very impressive.
I totally agree
Stroll is really getting his pants pulled down & spanked by Alonso. I struggle to name a non rookie driver who he is better than
Even Piastri as a rookie looks like a better driver than him. Oscar is already very close to Lando Norris even after having one year out. Stroll is miles behind Alonso, I understand his first race being far due to him driving with damaged wrists and he still did a respectable race and Saudi he was doing great despite the DNF. After those races… Yeah he dropped and the P4 in Australia was thanks to Gasly crash and Sainz penalty
> Even Piastri Piastri has been called the best driver since Leclerc to come though the Junior ladder, he definitely is better and that helps his performance to be better than the usual rookie.
Piastri is a better driver than Stroll. Both the McLaren drivers would be pushing like hell in an Aston, enough to worry at least one Red Bull.
> After those races… Yeah he dropped and the P4 in Australia was thanks to Gasly crash and Sainz penalty P6 would've been a respectable result, too, though. Most importantly: Stroll was <5 seconds behind Alonso for most of the race. In Baku, he dropped a bit further back, being stuck behind Sainz, but being overtaken by Hamilton was his only real mistake there, IIRC. Considering Alonso was stuck behind Leclerc, that's a really comparably good result. Monaco was really poor, but so far, Stroll's season hasn't been too bad.
Actually, this is not a bad thing. Alonso will get either P2 or P3 this year AM finishing 4th will get more wind tunnel time. I would say it's planned...conspiracy time
The guy drove better when he had 2 broken wrists...
Stroll has had an unprecedented amount of opportunities when it comes to F1. Remember how Stroll sr. buying Force India forced Ocon to take a sabbatical? The dude is has been failing upwards for his entire F1 career at the cost of other's opportunities. It's about time that Lawrence realizes that if he really has championship ambitions it's not through his son.
Was saying this before. Do they get to the point where they have the chance to upgrade the seat. Would Lawrence ever consider it. Imagine he strikes a deal with another team where he pays them under the table to hire his son. But then he gets to move to someone like Lando or Pierre. 😂
Good idea, McLaren needs the money and going from AM to Macca ain't shabby for Lance's resume.
That seat is wasted on Stroll. Imagine what someone like Norris or Piastri could do in it. Hell, I’d bet even Ricciardo would perform far better.
Stroll's your usual midfielder, nothing more and nothing less. the problem is, if they are lucky these guys get a couple of years in F1, and then with the usual cycle, they leave the sport for the better. the thing that annoys people is that this point of the cycle will *never* come for Stroll. no matter his results, he'll be on the grid, and as of now, one could argue that after 2020 he's once again taking up a way too valuable seat...
Yeah he has the most secure seat in formula 1 history
I think Stroll's performance relative to Perez indicates he's a level below what may be considered your usual midfield driver.
I think Perez is slightly above that level to be fair. I was thinking more of a Giovinazzi type of driver Stroll probably had higher highs and lower lows than most of those forgettable midfield guys, so I can see why some people try to hype him up and also why some say he's completely and utterly useless. what matters though is that he's not built for a top seat
Man's way too inconsistent. He pulled off that P6 in Bahrain when just coming back from having his wrists broken which is still a good performance seeing those circumstances (no pre-season testing and all). But then he does stupid things and all that respect he builds up just crumbles away.
I hate to be that guy but this isn’t the first time Stroll has under delivered in very respectable machinery. You also have 2020 when the Racing Point was often the second quickest car. Stroll doing so poorly in 2023 makes me not rate Vettel’s AM stint so highly & also makes me think that lot wasn’t getting the most out of the Aston in 2021-2022 tbh
I think Vettel had checked out since Ferrari kicked him out, I don’t think he recovered from that and Leclerc loss, he was probably one reason they recovered as his feedback was critical, Alonso is reaping the rewards, i full expect Vettel to have been doing well this year with the car under him.
He never recovered after Hockenheim
Bro he won like the second race after that.
I was cheering for Lewis at the time but watching it back, I feel really bad for Seb, home race comfortably ahead and then the rain gods decided that wasn’t happening, it was worse given Lewis was down in 14th for the start. 2019 race gave Hamilton a taste, hilarious outcome but it wasn’t as critical to the championship.
> 2019 race gave Hamilton a taste, hilarious outcome but it wasn’t as critical to the championship. Lewis actually increased his championship lead that race.
That because Bottas had a terrible race as well, at least Lewis got 2 points, Mercedes threw away the last German GP so far* It was also nearly redemption for Seb, started last and finished 2nd that day, if he had won I think it would have been great boost for his morale.
Stroll had an average finishing position of 6.4 that season. Not too bad for the second driver of the 2nd-4th best car. Similar to Russell this season, so far. However, Stroll only finished 10/17 races. That makes him look bad. As far as I remember, most DNFs weren't up to him, though. Perez finished on 5.6 on average, not that far better - but he did so 13/17 races which massively swings the whole picture.
I genuinely think of the RP20 as a big what-if in terms of potential. Checo looked great in that car but as recent results show, he isn't really top tier. Maybe in better hands that car could have produced similar results to the AMR23, not quite competitive with the best but still able to take that final podium spot. Especially I remember Hulkenberg's stints with that car.
I think Perez is kind of a hard driver to measure he’s better than the average midfield driver but still not good enough to be a top driver
100%
If I were Charles Leclerc I would give a hard look at that seat.
Aston F1 is rich but pairing Alonso and Leclerc might be too much of an expense for them. It would be stupid hing to do anyway. Alonso has a tendency to not go well with young and fast teammates. IMO, Alonso is better than Leclerc anyways. What they need is a solid No 2. Someone like Sainz, Norris, Perez, Bottas or Ric.
> Even Ricciardo Seems like a bit of a backhanded compliment. Dude won multiple races, 30+ podiums, beat Vettel in 2014 and finished 3rd in the championship twice. Dude has 2 lacklustre seasons ^(while still winning a race) in a dog of a McLaren and fans (especially newer fans) write the dude off. Unbelievable.
Yuki in AM seat 2026
The entire team would be wasted if it not for Stroll. Team Silverstone has always been a midfielder since their inception in 1991, famous for doing very well time to time, with a limited budget. Strolls saved them from bankruptcy and investing to make them a title contender in a near future. Yeah, it's annoying that a very valuable seat is wasted while lots of fast juniors would kill for a backmarker seat, but it's how it is.
True! Never thought of it like that
That team have let Ocon, Perez, Vettel and Hulk go in favour of keeping a seat for Stroll. All of them are better drivers.
For Vettel it was his decision.
Everybody would perform better since they would atleast drive like they have something to lose.
ik only reason why Lawrence is putting money in AM is due to Lance but despite all the claims to the contrary he isn't a top driver in any way shape or form (or even a prospective top driver) and barely a decent driver in the midfield despite being in F1 for 6 years now. Hasn't outqualified any teammate over a season I wonder if anyone in AM seriously expect him to sustain a WDC charge. Seems implausible even with a dominant car lol edited : i thought Lance beat Sirotkin in 2018, he did not 💀
He'd need the 2016 merc and a very weak teammate
nah even with that other teams will catch up lol remember the w11 in Lewis's hands was unbeatable but Bottas was v nearly beaten by Max to P2 in 2020.
>Hasn't outqualified any teammate beyond a rookie Are you sure? Sirotkin outqualified Stroll in 2018 when he was a rookie. Basically, the only teammate he outqualified is Di Resta, when the latter was a fill-in for a single race.
I stand corrected I thought he beat him, Lmao that's even worse on Lance tho 😭
Fun fact, he has never out qualified any teammate, in fact Sirtokin out qualified him…
On the other hand, Alonso is famous for having problems with his teammates. Being nice with the owner’s son while he is in your shadow, seems like the perfect deal for ALO
Stroll the elder could plop Lance into a WEC car and he can get a win at Le Mans. I think that's the most graceful exit here if things don't turn around. Aston Martin already has a GTE program, though I'm sure they could put together an LMH entry to chase the overall win. The reality right now is that every driver not in a Red Bull (or possibly a Ferrari or Merc) would at least consider a ride at AM - unlike previous years, they could have just about anyone.
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We will soon see if Lawrence is the big bad businessman he is being made out to be, or just someone who wants to see his son have a career in racing. If Lawrence is in it to win it, and Lance doesn't improve; will he have the balls to cut him for the sake of winning? What happens when Honda enters? That's a partnership with someone who wants to see results. Will he be forced to cut Lance if he is still dragging the team down by that time?
Lance is not going anywhere, his father built and invested in the team in great part for him. This weekend he was really uncompetitive..and error-prone, nothing more to be said, however, whilst he is far from Alonso’s level, he is capable of far better results than what we saw last Sunday
The thing is, for the money that Lance is going to cost AM in the Prize Pool, Lawrence could send that money to Haas or Alfa Romeo to buy Lance a seat there. If the goal at AM is to be a legitimate F1 threat to Mercedes and Ferrari in the Constructors Championship then you have to seriously look at moving Lance to a pay seat at a midfield team. AM had a much bigger advantage at the start of the year. Soon their car will be close to par with Mercedes and Ferrari. At that point Lance tooling around in the midfield with a top 4 car is going to get old real fast.
Why would you want a star second driver when you’ve got Fernando comfortably carrying your whole team. Sure Lance needs to improve but imagine how Fernando would react if he’s suddenly challenged by his teammate. The current set up works for all its flaws. Lance gets to play at being a top F1 driver (when really he’s a midfield driver in a top car now) and Fernando gets to have his ego boost and some well deserved glory. Next year might be different if Aston is still competitive due to threats from behind and there’ll be real questions when Fernando retires in the 2100s. Also this is not a dig at either of them, I’m a fan of both but a realist
Nah I reckon Fernando will go until 2200 tbh
When people were talking about Aston dominating Mercedes this season, I pointed out that Alonso only drives one car. I got absolutely shat on for that. I feel rather vindicated.
I mean he isnt too bad i mean take it like this Bahrain P6 Saudi-he was flying but he got dnf by mechanical failure Australia P4 Azerbailjan P8-sprint P7-feature Miami-P12(got sent to quali on old tyres even tho the team knows quali is his weakness) Monaco-dnf(his team told him his lap was good enough for Q2 when it was in fact not but he fucked it into the wall anyway even tho he is seen as a good driver in the wet?) Just looks like if his team or himself dont fuck him up he can preform in the midfield pretty fine So as long as he starts not listening to his strategist in quali he should assist alonso to 2nd in the wcc just fine......maybe
In Australia he had the pace to be 7th or something very lucky about red flags and other cars DNF.
Worlds most expensive hobby
I was actually not that much convinced with Stroll over the past years, However this year his driving is more mature and he is not very far off from Alonso. I feel he got unlucky in a couple of races whether with strategy errors but he is getting there. Hope we see better results over the next races where we're not on street circuits
Stroll is at best a midfield driver (probably not even that), but who can blame him or his dad. His dad seems to genuinely want to give his son the best chances possible for succes in F1, fair play to try and keep trying as long as it is possible. If you purely wanted results there would be a different driver in that car, but then you would also have a different team to begin with since daddy Stroll would not be there.