Stroll: “I’ve proven I belong in F1”

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In the round-up: Lance Stroll says his results so far prove he deserves to be in F1 on merit.

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@Matthijs recalls the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix:

I remember that I was on a holiday in France and could not watch the race. Without internet I had no clue who won.

My parents picked up a French newspaper the next morning and I read that Hill had led almost the entire race and almost won it. My first reaction was “This can’t be true, I really suck at French!”
@Matthijs

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69 comments on “Stroll: “I’ve proven I belong in F1””

  1. Have your dad cancel the check… then you will REALLY see how little you belong in f1….

  2. There is an old saying in F1: You’re only as good as your dad’s last paycheck.

  3. No you haven’t

  4. Stroll is deluded

  5. That COTD is gold!

    1. True that !

  6. Stroll is trying to prove is like nobody… He’s lying.
    DI Grassi has just said current FE budget is 30M, it will keep racking up as the desire grows.

  7. I think the point is this..do we really see Lance Stroll becoming World Champion further down the line? At this point, not really.

    When you see the likes of Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz, even Stoffel Vandorne, you can see them being world champion at some point given the right circumstances. After years of watching F1, you always get a sense for the potential a driver has. When we first saw the likes of Kimi, Vettel and Hamilton on the scene, you knew straight away they were special, I just dont seem to get that feeling from Lance.

    He’s already had a better career that Pedro (my daddy owns a supermarket chain) Diniz, so who knows!

    1. @jaymenon10, and neither did most people see Jody Scheckter becoming a champion either given how extraordinarily reckless he was when he first entered the sport, yet he managed to do just that.

      1. Not really, Sheckter was leading a race and about to win his third grand prix ever.From his first grand prix he was considered a contender to great things.

        1. Paul’s dad., he also caused one of the most notorious pile ups in F1 history at the 1973 British GP, where he caused a twelve car pile up that forced Andrea de Adamich to permanently retire from the sport due to the injuries he suffered.

          He might have been quick, but was also so reckless to begin with that Fittipaldi stated that “that madman… does not belong in Formula 1” because he honestly feared he would cause an accident that would end up killing somebody. After the pile up in the British GP, the Grand Prix Drivers Association initially demanded that he was expelled from F1 – they eventually accepted a compromise solution where he was temporarily withdrawn from F1 by McLaren instead.

          1. Yes we get it, People love to pick out low moments in a drivers career and characterize them by that entirely even though it is completely NOT representative of the drivers career as a whole.

      2. Speak for yourself. I believed Scheckter was a future WDC when I watched him blow-away the field (Brian Redman, Peter Gethin, David Hobbs, Mark Donohue, George Follmer, Brett Lunger,…) at Watkins Glen in a Lola T-330 (Formula 5000), a car which he hadn’t driven until qualifying the day before.

    2. @jaymenon10 Although I think you are right about Stroll, it’s not always easy to see the maximum potential. Anon mentiones Scheckter but there are more examples. Button never really outshone his teammate Barrichello until he got a winning car in 2009. That is when he upped his game. Same goes for Hakkinen vs Coulthard in 1998 and beyond. On the other hand there were great talents in mediocre cars that never extracted the maximum out of their car once they finally became a front runner. Name Fisichella for instance.

      1. @matthijs In the case of Button v Ruebens, you have to remember that the latter was a driver that was held in very high regard at one time as well. When Ruebens came onto the scene, he was tipped to Senna’s heir apparent. Jenson was no slouch either, he was certainly one of the better drivers on the grid.

        Mika was destined to be star, I think that was pretty obvious from early on.

        I agree with what you say about Fisi, always felt he had the potential to be a top front runner, but he didnt quite deliver at Renault. Some would point to Flavio’s machinations, but I think, on the long run, you can safely say that he wasnt as quick as Fernando.

        Im not saying Lance cannot become World Champion, I’m saying I dont see him being world champion. I could be wrong.

        1. @jaymenon10 You are right that a driver like Button was regarded much higher than Stroll is at the moment, but in his first years I did not see a world champion in him. Beaten by Ralf Schumacher and Fisichella in his first two seasons.

          Im not saying Lance cannot become World Champion, I’m saying I dont see him being world champion. I could be wrong.

          I actually agree 100%

          1. High regard for Jenson Button was very short-lived. Sports fans are fickle, and he was slated hard for a long time.

            If Stroll ever is a champion, he could very quickly also become the most popular driver on websites like this too.

          2. True but by about 2004 Button was a really solid driver with a good reputation and had outperformed Trulli who himself also showed great potential in his career.
            Didn’t Hakkinen outqualify Senna in his 3rd GP??
            Don’t think Stroll matches up to either or Fisi. Will be lucky to have career like Maldonado or Petrov.

  8. Yeah…no. Many drivers outside of F1 could do a MUCH better job than Stroll.

  9. Without his dad money, he wouldn’t be in F1….

  10. Lance, an few finish doesn’t mean you belong in F1.

    Watching onboards of Lance gives an good idea how skilled he is. In corners he is correcting all the time through the corners. Watching Massa in the same corners as null point Massa doesn’t jerk his steer at all (if he has an normale corner)

  11. Stroll: “The results speak for themselves.”

    Given that his results are 9-1 to Massa in qualifying, 5-0 to Massa in races they’ve both finished and three points finishes to six… I’d make sure those results kept their mouths shut. I’d actually get my dad to pay them to be quiet.

    1. i was just thinking that – the results really do speak for themselves.

      1. Add to that Massa is the Plan B for Williams and not the intended driver. Stroll and Palmer really is the lowpoint in F1, paydrivers in supposed topteams.

        1. I’d add Ericson too. The guy gets beaten by each and every teammate he gets in F1, yet he’s still here… his ponsors now even own Sauber.

          1. At the age of sixteen, Ericsson won the 2007 British Formula BMW by 40 points and was described by Autosport as “the best young talent”. Two years later in 2009 Ericsson won the Japanese F3 championship. Ericsson drove for Brawn GP at the young driver test at Circuito de Jerez in 2009 after which team principal Ross Brawn commended Ericsson for his performance, saying that he had “performed very well showing exceptional maturity in his approach and feedback”.

            So @jeffreyj, since you obviously consider yourself a better judge than either Ross Brawn or Autosport magazine, could this be because of your own lack of knowledge?

          2. The young talent coming through to f1 at the moment is poor except for verstappen, but he has many errors in his driving and could easily fall back to midfield

  12. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    11th August 2017, 9:13

    I think he’s done enough to deserve to be here next year but I do think he came into F1 a year to early. But I certainly can say he did an excellent job in Baku. Many say he didn’t but I don’t agree with them. Multiple other drivers who we consider much better than him made silly mistakes. Including Vettel, Hulkenberg, Ocon and several others too. Even Ricciado, and Bottas who both beat him made mistakes this weekend (although Bottas’s clash with Kimi was deemed to be a 50 -50 racing incident) Ricciardo crashed in qualifying and it was basically only because of the speed of the Red Bull and the Mercedes that they both beat Stroll that Weekend. I think Stroll could have won that race if he was in a better car. But then I feel sorry for Perez and Massa too. I think Perez, Massa, Stroll and Hamilton were the drivers more deserving of a podium. But I have to say Bottas and Ricciardo did have an excellent recovery drive that day. Several did retire but Stroll really did do a great job of keeping out of trouble all weekend. He also hasn’t been clearly at fault for his own or anyone else’s retirement during any races this year. Many other drivers have been responsible for their own or someone else’s and this includes Verstappen. I suppose we could possibly say Stroll was partly responsible for retiring in China though but it did look to be Perez to blame also but a racing incident was fair enough. But loads of the other races, he has been unlucky in. In the most recent races, I’d say he is still looking reasonable, but the Williams is just looking dreadful…..
    Massa is certainly better, but if the money from Stroll’s dad may help the team and Stroll improves, I think Williams should keep the same line up next year.

    1. @thegianthogweed “I think he’s done enough to deserve to be here next year” I disagree.

      I have so much higher expectations about what makes someone worthy of an F1 seat.

      Some are there for their talent, some are not. He’s not. He may turn eventually into an average driver but doubt he ever will be much than that. Also, he will probably be stuck forever in teams that need pay drivers.

      1. Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
        11th August 2017, 13:07

        I mayb should have used different words. But if he gets his money and the sponsors and the money help the team, I think he is good enough to deserve to stay in. If it wasn’t for his money, maybe he shouldn’t. But if he came in in a few years time, He could b much better. If he does improve towards the end of this year, I do think it will be worth the team keeping him.

  13. I think if he’d had a couple of years in F2 before he joined F1 it would be a different story. Leclerc would’ve won the F2 title this year, with Stroll probably 4th behind Markelov and Rowland, before winning it in 2018, then getting a Williams seat in 2019.
    He was rushed into the sport before he was ready. I think Williams looked at Verstappen and how quickly he was taken into F1 and how well he did, but forgot that Stroll isn’t Verstappen. Given a couple more years in the lower formula’s, allowing him to mature, he could’ve had a much better rookie season in 2019, and he’d have still been just 20, so with plenty of time to develop.

    1. @hugh11 100% agree, he’s been rushed in before he was ready. Apart from Verstappen, when we consider the cream of the grid they all came through very competitive GP2 seasons, and into F1 seats at 22-23 yrs old, better drivers than Stroll and with 3-4 additional seasons of finishing school!

      Even if we look at Ocon he had some time in Free Practice sessions and ran around at the back of the grid for several races in the Manor.

      As @macleod points out in the post above Stroll is still early in his driver development and has been really chopping at the wheel in corners, he hasn’t developed his style yet.

      Let’s see how he develops across the next season and a half. I hope we see a stop to drivers being catapulted into F1 before they are ready and a return to a more measured entry where they have time to develop the required skill set, I am sure Max would have benefitted from a season in GP2 (as it was then), you can see Ocon is more polished than Max was in his rookie seasonwith the additional experience he had in single seaters.

      1. when we consider the cream of the grid they all came through very competitive GP2 seasons

        @ju88sy Vettel didn’t, and RIC got in through FR3.5 (which…I guess is not very different, but still), BOT went to F1 straight from GP3, and I think RAI didn’t do F3000 or any of its equivalents either.

        And VES, well…….

        1. can’t edit, but I guess to be fair VET was leading an FR3.5 season when he moved to F1

          1. @davidnotcoulthard I don’t see F2 progression as mandatory, the examples you give all had more than a single season in single seaters, often with some Free Practice running throw in as well! Vettel had done a heck of a lot relative to Stroll and Max by the time he made his F1 debut!

          2. more than a single season in single seaters, often with some Free Practice running throw in as well!

            @ju88sy yeah, fair enough, not GP2 but I guess they would indeed have had some pre-F1 single-seater experience.

  14. Stroll logic. One freak result warrants your place in F1 for years to come.
    By that logic, Maldonado is as good as Max seeing they both won their only GP at the same place.

    1. Pastor was better, he brought diversity and entertainment to the grid. Not to mention he had better race craft.

  15. When?

  16. Lance has proven that with a modicum of ability and $80 million devoted to ones preparation, one can perform at a reasonable level in Formula 1. I dare say we could all do that given the chance.

  17. I don’t think Stroll should be in Formula One, but I nevertheless think all this bashing is unwarranted. What else is he going to say? “To be honest I’m here only because of my dad’s wealth. There is no way I am Formula One material. Looking forward to Spa!”?

    Given that he’s occupying a seat that could belong to someone with skills, I’m expecting Lance to at least believe in himself and try his best.

    1. @hotbottoms
      “I’ve had some good results so far but I still want to show that I belong in F1 during the rest of the season”.
      “I showed in Baku what I can do, so I’d like to have some more results like this to show that I belong here to the doubters”.

      To be fair, reading the whole article he does acknowledge the financial leg ups he’s had over the years, but he’s taken his opportunity. No one should blame Stroll though, the problem is the nature of the lower open-wheel formulas being so expensive but perhaps there is no solution to this.

    2. @hotbottoms maybe after he retires he can talk about himself like http://www.autosport.com/premium/feature/4641/taki-inoue-on-his-nightmare-f1-career

      (except Stroll isn’t quite that bad)

  18. GtisBetter (@)
    11th August 2017, 11:03

    Plenty of drivers are in f1, cause of daddy or relatives. Max is, because daddy had the resources and connections, sainz is. Sure they are better drivers, but they had a headstart with the name. Stroll had a head start with money. It’s how the world works. The world is not a fair place. I think pretty much everybody would do the same in strolls place. Take the money and do something awesome.

    1. The big difference between Max and Stroll is that Max has championship level talent.

      1. GtisBetter (@)
        11th August 2017, 11:42

        But still the only way we know max has talent is because he had a father who was in f1 and has a shed full of custom made karts for max to drive in at a very early age. That is a position not many kids are in. While max has more talent, he also is a privileged kid with more oppertunities then most. Stroll might be slower, but it seems silly to single him out, cause of his dad. This is his rookie year, so he still might improve.

        1. Indeed.

          7,400,000,000 people in the world, and in the last couple of years we’ve had 5 sons of drivers: Magnussen, Palmer, Verstappen, Rosberg, Sainz (ok, not F1 but you know what I mean).

          Sure, they have families that bring them up in a motorsport environment, but something is clearly not right here.
          F1 is not the best drivers in the world.

          1. Could be genetics as well. Didn’t know that Palmer was the son of an F1 driver…

  19. Stroll has been completely beaten by massa who is a known quantity of 2nd rate driver. If you took someone like Vandoorne and Stroll and switched them around you’d see that Stroll would be totally beaten by Alonso whereas Vandoorne would beat Massa. Nobody would take Stroll if he wasn’t filthy rich.

    1. Five points back of Massa is ‘completely beaten?’ Even if Massa is ‘second rate’ he’s for all the F1 experience in the world, and yet only 5 points up.

      Personally I think Williams proved that Stroll belongs in F1, and Lance himself is proving he can learn and grow.

      And I think too many people forget that F1 just intentionally made itself a harder series with the reg changes over last season(s).

      I think the ‘it’s only about money’ rhetoric is over the top. All the drivers have money one way or another in order to get where they are. It takes money. But no…that much money and suddenly it’s a different story? Spending even billions let alone 80 mill is never a guarantee…ask Toyota.

  20. the stroll bashing is getting so old now.

    the kid won the f3 championship, heck he pretty much dominated it & i think that proves without any doubt that he is good enough to have gotten to f1 without his dad’s cash.

    his dads cash may have helped him get to f1 sooner, but given his junior category results where he was in equal machinery to his rivals its pretty clear he’d have got to f1 at some point based on talent alone….. not that those who like to heap on criticism will ever acknowledge that of course, i think many would have been just as critical of him if he’s gone to f2 & dominated his rookie season.
    i mean pastor maldonado won the then gp2 championship & won an f1 race on merit yet people still brought up his cash before acknowledging his achievements.

    going back to stroll i think that post montreal & baku he hasn’t had the chance to really show continued improvement in terms of results as i think its pretty clear that since austria the williams hasn’t been especially competitive. they have either changed something on the car that hasn’t worked or have simply been out-developed by the teams around them as its been clear they have been struggling the past 3 rounds.

    1. He’s just in F1 way too early. Team seem to think that all talents are like Max. But they’re not. They need more practice in junior categories

    2. The problem is that there is a perceived lack of strength in depth of last year’s Euro F3 field, and his terrifying driving standards the year before. It would probably have been a different matter if he had won GP3 or dominated Macau, but one can only compete against one’s rivals on the day. I’m just getting bored of the self-justification and confidence-building PR from Williams. As Mark Webber said in his autobiography, Williams isn’t the team it used to be.

      1. melonfarmer, is the Macau Grand Prix event that much of a relevant event these days when you have also had the likes of Keisuke Kunimoto or Tristan Gommendy also win those events?

        Furthermore, whilst you comment that Stroll didn’t win that event, over half the grid – Hamilton, Grosjean, Vettel, Hulkenberg, Wehrlein, Verstappen, Ocon, Sainz Jr., Bottas, Ricciardo, Ericsson and Magnussen – have all raced in that event and failed to win it (I’m talking about the main race – Hamilton did win the qualifying race in his year, though I think that he might be the only one to achieve even that measure).

        For good measure, none of the replacement drivers who have driven this year – Button, di Resta or Giovinazzi – have won the Macau GP either, whilst Kubica – whom many want to see return to the sport and hail as a great talent – also never won the event.

        That is a very extensive list of drivers who are supposed to be better than Stroll who have also failed to win that race – I believe that the last driver to win that race to then race in F1 would be di Grassi, having won the 2005 Macau GP.

  21. I really hope Stroll does know he’s not good enough. That way he can at least improve.

    Imho he shouldn’t have a seat at Williams, or in F1 at all.

  22. I’ve proven I belong to be here in F1. The results speak for themselves.

    Dixit Stroll.
    Rhetorically, this is dangerously close to scoring an own goal. The only thing that speaks for him is one result, singular. The freak result in Baku.
    The results however, plural, showcase Stroll as an also-ran. Other than that grotesque Azerbaijan GP, the strongest candidate for a retroactive demotion to a non-championship race since the early eighties (or second-strongest after the 2005 Indy GP), he’s scored twice in ten races, in a car that was demonstrably virtually always good enough to score points. A meager ninth and tenth, all ultimately due to attrition.
    His results do speak for themselves. He doesn’t belong in F1. At least yet.

  23. 2nd youngest driver in history to make the podium is no mean feat. Especially in his 8th race on a tricky circuit and with a not-so-competitive car. IMO this proves he belongs in F1 even if his races before that were somewhat rubbish.

    1. What it proves is that money is the most important thing to “belong” in F1 and get podiums.

  24. Odd question, but am I the only one who thinks that the new cars are a great fit for Massa and that, as a consequence, we somewhat underrate Stroll’s performance?

    On topic, I think Stroll showed he belong. I mean, there has to be a worst driver… And I’m not even sure it’s Stroll. But he’s certainly the worst “legit” driver.

  25. Well from his recent races I can say that he can keep it together on the race weekend and work under pressure but I have yet to see a race where he shows true outright pace and something that proves he is special.

    1. @redbullf1 i think lance has shown very good outright pace in more than 1 race.

      qualifying has been more of a struggle (i was reading that he’s had issues getting tyres into the working range over a single lap) but his long run race pace has actually been very strong. and let us not forget that during the race in baku while he may have been helped to 3rd he certainly had the pace to stay there & was one of the fastest cars on track over the final stint.

  26. I certainly hope that Pirelli don’t take the 2018 tyres back to the bad days of stupid thermal degredation where drivers were having to cruise around managing them all race because i really don’t want to sit through that nonsense again.

    the operating windows aside the tyres this year have been pretty spot on, they produce good grip levels & allow drivers to push hard & actually race without fear of tyres overheating & degrading after a few laps…… its been great :)

    i think all pirelli’s words show is that we need a tyre war to ensure that the tyres are the absolute best they could possibly be rather than having a sole supplier trying to either be too conservative or trying hit hit degredation/performance gap targets.
    this is supposed to be the pinnacle of the sport & i don’t feel the tyres have been the pinnacle of anything for the last decade but certainly not since 2011 where the tyres have at best been nothing more than fine & at worst a complete & utter joke.

    1. RogerAyles, well, when you have people complaining that the tyres are now too hard and that they are bored with one stop races, Pirelli are being damned if they do and damned if they don’t – if they soften the tyres up, they are criticised because “drivers can’t push”, but if they then go for a conservative design people complain that “one stop races are boring”.

  27. Anyone who believes Stroll belongs in F1 raise your hand.

  28. Just what I thought: I see no hands.

    1. Lol…I do.

  29. Stroll belongs as much in F1 as I belong to a hotelroom – there are at least 20 in the line in front of him, but without money!

  30. Just when I was thinking he might not be that bad, he ruined it.

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