SUMMARY
- Lance Stroll finshed 132 points behind his teammate, Fernando Alonso in 2023.
- Stroll blames this performance deficit on bad luck.
The 2023 season saw Fernando Alonso have one of his best seasons in F1. However, his teammate was nowhere near the Spaniard’s performance. In a recent interview after the completion of the season, Stroll blames his poor performance on luck.
Lance Stroll has been in F1 since the 2017 season. Since then, he has raced alongside several drivers and a total of 3 teams. He first made his debut with Williams and went to Racing Point which was previously called Force India. It has been speculated that Stroll was only able to get a seat in F1 because of the funding his father provides. In 2021, Lawrence Stroll decided to rebrand Racing Point to Aston Martin.
Lance Stroll’s performance deficit to be blamed on bad luck?
While Fernando Alonso finished 4th in the Championship with 206 points, Lance Stroll only managed to score 74 points and finished 10th in the WDC. There was a very glaring performance difference between the 2 drivers. Stroll was recently asked about this difference. To this, he replied:
“It’s been a season with a lot of bad luck, a lot of missed opportunity,” Motorsportweek quotes him as saying.
“I don’t like using the words bad luck, but I think missed opportunities.
“But I guess it’s bad luck when I think about the failures and stuff. We had races like Saudi [when I was] running P4, engine problem.
“Monaco qualifying, hitting debris – damage to the car and starting from the mid-pack in Monaco, you lose your weekend.”
🚨 | Lance Stroll believes misfortune contributed to his Alonso points deficit.
“It’s been a season with a lot of bad luck.”https://t.co/yjNqOrQ1Jb
— formularacers (@formularacers_) December 25, 2023
Although he did have bad luck in a couple or more races, there were several other races where he failed to match Fernando Alonso’s pace. There were even weekends where Stroll struggled to finish in the top 15 during qualifying. The Canadian showed some anger after one of these performances after which he got in trouble with the FIA. This raised some serious doubts about Lance’s capability of helping the team.
Aston Martin will be hoping that Lance is able to improve on his performance in the coming season. Or else, they will receive a lot of pressure from the media to replace Stroll with someone better. This will not make the team’s owner, Lawrence Stroll happy. It will be interesting to see how Aston Martin moves forward with Lance Stroll if his poor performance continues.
How many times has Lance Stroll defeated his teammate in F1?
Lance Stroll has now raced in F1 for 7 seasons. During this time he has raced alongside many drivers. Unlike other drivers, Stroll did not drive in Formula 2 or GP2. He went from the European F3 Championship straight to F1. This was mainly because his father was willing to sponsor his race seat in Williams.
In his rookie season, Stroll was paired with Felipe Massa who was going to retire after that season. In 2017, Lance actually had a decent season where he finished only 3 points behind his Brazilian teammate. The next year, Williams decided to go with Sergei Sirotkin alongside Stroll. This was the only time, the Canadian driver was able to outscore his teammate in F1.
🚨 | Lance Stroll improved as a driver this year, believe Aston Martin.
Mika Krack says Stroll handled the “pressure” in 2023.https://t.co/2IuNnS5fPE
— formularacers (@formularacers_) December 26, 2023
After a poor season for Williams, Lawrence Stroll decided to take his son’s talents to Force India who were going through some financial trouble. Lawrence got the team out of trouble and got a seat in the team for his son in 2019. He was paired with Sergio Perez for the next 2 years.
It was clear that Perez was the better driver out of the 2. However, it was Checo who was asked to leave the team after 2020 to make way for Sebastian Vettel from the 2021 season. Vettel also was easily better than Stroll. Vettel raced for Aston Martin for 2 years and decided to retire from the sport. Then came Fernando Alonso and we all know how that story went.