Stroll finds Monaco is no game
Williams driver blames crash on Playstation Vettel fastest in practice with Hamilton eighth
Few in Formula One have encapsulated the callowness of youth as memorably as Lance Stroll. Not content with earning his place at this level thanks to his fashion mogul father’s billions, or dismissing any objective critics of his driving as “haters”, the 18-year-old Canadian tried to excuse his crash at Casino Square yesterday by saying that he had made the same mistake on his Playstation.
In the less forgiving real world, alas, there was no opportunity to reboot and start again. Stroll is racing for Williams, a fabled F1 team who have produced seven world champion drivers, and yet he still seems to regard the privilege as akin to playing a computer game.
In five races he has acquired not a single point and began his preparations for Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix with another lapse in concentration that launched him straight into the steel barriers.
Referring to his struggles at two of Monaco’s trickiest corners, Portier and Rascasse, he said: “It really p----- me off, because every time I play the Playstation game, it’s always those corners that I can’t get right, and in reality it’s still those two corners.”
Time is running out fast for Stroll, who secured his ticket to the big time mainly on the strength of father Lawrence’s fortune, made courtesy of a huge investment in clothing giant Tommy Hilfiger. But with five failures in races, including three retirements, he has done nothing to justify the extraordinary faith shown in one so young.
Despite the pressure, he has been at pains to defend his credentials, pointing to the fact that he won titles at junior levels. There is little precedent, however, for any driver rising to the elite, as Stroll has done, after a mere three seasons in singleseaters.
By some estimates, Stroll Snr has spent more than £50 million to seal an F1 seat for his son, but with each race that passes this appears like a vanity project.
One who adapted seamlessly to the Monaco test in practice yesterday was Jenson Button, finishing 12th on the afternoon time-sheets in a Mclaren that has typically been rooted to the back of the grid. The team’s decision to re-enlist the 2009 world champion as a replacement for Fernando Alonso, busy chasing his Indianapolis 500 dream, looks an astute one. Button has lived in the principality for 17 years, building a knowledge of the track far more nuanced and subtle than any Playstation could give. There are signs that Sunday’s grand prix could be more of an even contest than the recent dominance by Mercedes and Ferrari, with Red Bull re-entering the equation. Daniel Ricciardo set the second fastest time of the afternoon behind Sebastian Vettel, raising hopes that they could yet gatecrash the duel of the big two by the time they receive their Renault engine upgrade.
Mercedes, curiously, were far from their supreme best, as errors with data settings left Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas eighth and 10th in the second session. “Something went wrong – the tyres weren’t working,” Hamilton said.
The moment seems ripe, then, for Ferrari to seize their first victory on the Côte d’azur since 2001.
There will be a sombre mood on the grid on Sunday as F1 pays its respects to the Manchester attack victims, with Mercedes confirming that their cars will be emblazoned with expressions of sympathy.