Lawrence Stroll thinks his son’s dismal performance has more to do with a lot of ‘bad luck’ than anything to do with his own abilities.
Lance Stroll ranks tenth in the drivers’ standings with just 47 points after the first 17 races of the season. In contrast, Alonso has more than doubled the figure, has placed third seven times, and is currently fourth in the drivers standings.
Stroll currently sits 136 points behind teammate Fernando Alonso in the standings, and although Aston Martin had previously appeared to be the front-runner for the second place in the constructors standings, they must now keep a watchful eye on the rapidly surging McLaren.
Many have questioned whether Lance Stroll merits his seat due to the team’s deficient point totals, but his father, Lawrence Stroll who is the owner of Aston Martin F1 team thinks this is an unjust argument.
Stroll Snr also serves as executive chairman of the same team that his son drives for. The squad has upped its level of performance this season, but while Fernando Alonso has been turning in outstanding performances, his teammate has struggled.
Stroll’s 2023 season got off to the worst possible start when a preseason bike incident caused him to break his wrists and prevented him from participating in the Bahrain test.
Amazingly, the Canadian returned to the car for the opening race at the same site the following weekend, albeit he later acknowledged that he did so while in excruciating pain.
The Canadian racer is currently having his worst season. Only three of his last seven racing weekends have resulted to a points finish, and he hasn’t collected any since the summer break.
However, considering the fact that Alonso’s performance has also gotten poorer as their car’s relative pace has declined, the Spaniard has continued to score points regularly.
Stroll’s weekend in Qatar last time out was a particularly bad one. He not only exited qualifying in the first round, but he was also forced to apologise to the FIA after a compliance officer investigated the Canadian driver shoving his trainer in the Aston Martin garage.
However, Lawrence Stroll has defended his son, claiming that Alonso’s point advantage over him has nothing to do with “his own abilities” but rather, “a lot of bad luck.”
“Lance started the year on the back foot with two broken wrists for the first half-dozen races, which was very challenging, but really did a heroic job,” he said.
“He’s had an unfortunate amount of bad luck. He’s had nine retirements due to engine failures, or a rear-wing failure [at the Japanese GP].
“Half of the races it hasn’t been anything to do with his own abilities, he has just had a lot of bad luck, sadly.”
The reasons why Stroll’s results and performances have been worse as the season progresses on are still a mystery to Aston Martin. However team boss Mike Krack asserted that he may know what went wrong.
“I think we need to prove it first,” Krack said. “The fact is that he has lost a bit of competitiveness and this is something we need to understand.
“We have suspicions and indications and this is I think what Lance is referring to.
“But then we need to make the according changes and see if this is confirmed, that if you improve that, he improves as well.”
Stroll, meanwhile, has publicly stated that he feels the team’s car upgrades have made it more challenging for his son to operate.
“There’s always things in every car, I mean, but I think when the car has been really good this year, I’ve been really happy with it,” he said.
“It’s just recently it’s been a bit more challenging, I think we took some directions with the philosophy, of bringing upgrades aerodynamically, that I don’t think made us go the step forward that we were hoping for.
“So, we’re trying to understand that and bring some stuff to the car in the season now to fix that and help the characteristic that we had earlier in the season, where the car was more predictable, easier to drive, and more forgiving.
“I think we’ve lost some of that.”
