It’s been speculated that Lance Stroll would have been fired if his father did not control the team.
Bernie Collins, a former Aston Martin strategy engineer turned commentator, feels Lance Stroll has a “bad rep” since his father, Lawrence Stroll, owns the Silverstone-based team; nonetheless, she agrees that the Canadian has had a “poor” season.
Stroll has endured tremendous criticism in 2023 for his poor performance, despite having perhaps the greatest vehicle of his Formula One career.
He’s defied the strain of having Fernando Alonso replace Sebastian Vettel, with the Spaniard taking over as team captain almost immediately.
Stroll was given the benefit of the doubt at the start of 2023 after missing pre-season testing due to injury, but he never really got going.
Throughout the season, Alonso consistently outperformed him and finished fourth in the Drivers’ Championship with 206 points.
Stroll finished the season in 10th place with just 74 points.
The AMR23 was more than capable of scoring much beyond 100 points, as shown by Alonso, who scored almost three times as many as Stroll.
Stroll did not even finish on the rostrum, something Alonso did eight times.
There’s no getting around the reality that Stroll’s dismal season contributed to Aston Martin finishing sixth in the Constructors’ Championship.
If he had done similarly to Alonso, the British team would not have been defeated by McLaren and would have been in contention for P2.
Because of his disappointing season, numerous people questioned if Stroll was simply kept because his father owned the club.
Most people feel that if Stroll had raced for a team other than Aston Martin, he would have been given the door.
When evaluating Stroll’s results this year, Collins believes it’s “very difficult” to ignore about his father owning the club; nonetheless, she believes the 25-year-old has to put in more “work” to compete with Alonso.
“I think Lance gets a bad rep for you know his father owning the team,” said Collins on the Beyond The Grid podcast. “And I think it’s very hard to remove that aspect when judging his performance. This year his performances have been poor, I don’t think you can argue that particularly since the car’s got worse.
“I think Checo in Force India was underrated, so when Lance wasn’t beating Checo he was underrated even more which is why there has been this drive to bring in Vettel, and now Alonso, drivers that are highly rated to get some close results.
“And I will be interested to see – I don’t think we’ve had an accurate view on him versus Alonso because of what’s happened throughout the year, he does have to work at it more than, you know, the likes of Alonso.”
