STROLL SEEKS TO MAKE HIS MARK AT HOME
Canadian Formula One driver has better team, but still struggles in qualifying
“Finally I have a race car,” Lance Stroll said after the season opening Australian Grand Prix, where he finished ninth and picked up his first championship points with his new team, Racing Point.
The message was clear: After two years of mostly spinning his wheels at Williams, the Montreal native felt he had the tools to showcase his talent at the highest level of racing.
Not only the tools, but the backing, with his billionaire father Lawrence and his consortium of investors bankrolling the team’s efforts after their takeover of what used to be known as Force India.
It all sounded promising, with everything in place for the youngster to make his mark.
And yet, six races later, Stroll has been largely invisible — which is saying something considering he’s driving around in a hot pink car.
He matched his ninth place in Australia with another in Azerbaijan, but otherwise has been unable to crack the top 10.
His average finish is 12th — at least a couple of places lower than it should be at the wheel of a middle-of-the-pack car.
Teammate Sergio Perez is closer to the target; his average finish is listed at 10.83. He finished sixth in Azerbaijan, eighth in China and 10th in Bahrain.
Qualifying remains Stroll’s biggest weakness, bordering on embarrassing. He has gone 10 straight Grands Prix without progressing out of the first knockout round. His average starting grid position this season is 16th among 20 drivers.
Perez? He’s made it out of Q1 four times out of six — and twice into Q3, the final shootout round. His average starting grid position is a more respectable 12th.
On the positive side, on race day, Stroll has earned himself a reputation for being a good starter and making up places in a hurry.
Then again, if you consistently qualify lower than you should, you’d be expected to overtake the slower cars around you.
All this places Stroll 14th in the drivers’ standings, with four points, while Perez sits in eighth with 13 points. That’s a big gap between teammates in equal cars.
To be fair, Stroll, 20, is only in his third year of F1 and his first at Racing Point. Comparisons to Perez, a nine-year veteran and the team’s established driver, are probably premature.
There is still time to make his mark, and no better time than his home race.
Certainly fans at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve will be hoping for more than last year’s result, when Stroll crashed out on Lap 1 in a collision with a Toro Rosso driver.
Something more like his home debut, in 2017, would do the trick. Stroll finished ninth then to score his first career F1 points (two) and spark frenzied celebrations in the grandstands and Williams paddocks.
He has finished ninth twice already this season in a better car. With the home crowd cheering him on — and barring any mishaps — he should be expected to do at least one better.