Guaranteed place?
Among the 20 drivers present in Formula 1 Lance Stroll is the only one who can truly say he has a ‘permanent place’ on the grid. Not even Max Verstappen, the absolute ruler of recent seasons, in fact has the advantage of being the son of team owner. A significant bonus which, however, in the last few days, just after returning from the summer break, hasn’t prevented the #18 from Aston Martin from ending up in the center of the market rumors. The fault of a performance that in the first half of 2023 was not up to the car made available to him by the team.
Merciless comparison
In fact, before the drop in performance experienced in the last three races, the AMR23 was the second-third best car on the track. Fernando Alonso by the same means he was able to conquer six podium placements and is still third in the Drivers’ standings. Stroll, on the other hand, is ninth, with no top-3 finishes and 102 points behind his fellow veteran. Merciless numbers that have made several commentators say that even his father could consider whether to keep him in the team for a long time. “I believe that if Stroll continues like this, at some point his father will no longer be able to help but worry about the second cabin“, former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher told the site formel1.de.
Injury mitigating
Stroll’s partial mitigating factor is thesuffered an accident while training on a bicycle at the start of the season. This episode forced him to miss pre-season testing and ride injured in the first races of 2023. The team’s technical director, Dan Fallowschimed in in defense of the Montreal native: “Taking into account the injuries Lance sustained in his cycling accident earlier in the season and his recovery, he has performed very well alongside a great teammate“said the former Red Bull engineer.
Rumors about the future
However, not everything is clear if one thinks of the latest, sensational, rumors surfaced in the paddock which would give Lance Stroll interested in a possible transition to professional tennis. The only way the 24-year-old from Québec has to silence the critics is to play a second half of the season that lives up to expectations. Being constantly close to Alonso, starting from the Zandvoort weekend, will be essential to silence those who believe that his place on the grid depends only on ‘family matters’.
#Stroll #future #granted #FormulaPassion