Lance Stroll in ‘he’s not terrible’ shocker
They heckled and jeered and called Lance Stroll a pay driver. And then he started racking up the points.
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O OTHER SPORT is so prohibitively expensive. A season of top-level karting costs £150,000 and a year of Formula 2, the feeder series to Formula 1, will set you back more than £2 million. How drivers cover these costs generates a lot of column inches and can taint your reputation. For many, calling someone a ‘pay driver’ is intended as an insult. Certainly it’s a label that’s been applied to Lance Stroll for negative reasons. And yet he keeps on scoring points, which – however rich and well connected you are – only happens if you have talent and determination.
The label has plagued 2017 F1 rookie Stroll for much of his racing career. He’s clearly a good driver: Italian F4 champion in 2014, Toyota Racing Series champion in ’15, and he became the youngest ever champion of the Formula 3 Euroseries in ’16, finishing 100 points clear of his closest rival.
That’s a record comparable to the early days of many drivers who went on to be F1 world champions. Juan Manuel Fangio, say, who persuaded the Argentine government under Juan Peron to support his ambitions. Or Alain Prost, whose early career was funded by Elf. Michael Schumacher had the might of Mercedes behind him and Lewis Hamilton’s path was paved and paid for by McLaren.
Stroll’s career has been bankrolled by the Bank of Dad. His billionaire father Lawrence, who owns multiple houses, a racetrack and a bunch of Ferraris, including a 250 GTO, has ploughed as much as £80 million into his career. That’s more than any pay driver in history – more than the likes of Pedro Diniz, whose billionaire father bankrolled the Forti Corse team in the mid-’90s to ensure his son had a seat in which to race in F1. Diniz scored 10 points in six seasons. At the time of writing Stroll has 28 points – including one podium – in his debut year and sits just 3 points behind team-mate Felipe Massa.
Sources at Williams claim Stroll Snr’s contribution to the team is $36 million in 2017. For that outlay Stroll Jnr gets a 20-race F1 season and a parallel test programme with the two-year-old car, which he uses to learn tracks where he’s never previously raced.
For as long as Stroll Snr can afford to shell out, then Stroll Jnr is set fair. But perception counts for a lot in sport and Lance’s impeccable record in the junior formulas and even his third place in Azerbaijan earlier this year will count for little until he cuts the umbilical cord from his father’s bank balance. Can Stroll do that while contining to remain an attractive proposition to teams?
It’s a question that has dogged every pay driver in F1 and very few have succeeded in shaking off the tag. But it has been done, most notably by a man who went on to win multiple world titles. His name? Niki Lauda.
Now those are big shoes to follow, Lance.