14 races in, how are people feeling about Stroll now? He's 12th in the table on 28 points and only 3 points behind Massa. His last two races have probably been his most impressive.
I don't know if he's a future champion but he's certainly doing a competent job for Williams.
Strolls hatred was driven by rich kid jealousy. He made a good job, even though massa is way past the driver he was 10 years ago, he still beats sometimes a multiple gp winner. I m curious to see how he would do putside williams, a team which his practically owned by his father
I think it's a matter of perspective. The Renault was good around Singapore in dry and wet conditions, at least it was in competent hands. The Williams struggled all weekend yet Lance took advantage of the conditions to out race a few quicker cars (the Haas pair, a Force India...) and was substantially better than Massa.
Certainly he is doing a much better job than I had expected. But I would not say that he was a future WDC unless he was to land a ride in a totally dominating car. A bit like his Canadian predecessor, JV.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
I was willing to give him a chance, but I wrote him off quickly after he wrote off a few cars.
But he's turned it around.
He's not wrecking constantly, which is massive change. I'm not sure he's gotten all that much faster though, but if he's going the same pace as before and not wrecking then it's still a solid improvement.
Hard to say how good he is overall given that Massa is a bit shit. We'll see who his teammate is next year.
Oscar Piastri in F1! Catch the fever! Vettel Hate Club. Life membership.
Last post here was in 2017 and the 2018 season has also come and gone. I think @MonteCristo's assessment is the most accurate. He doesn't wreck any more but he's not got any faster. Compared to the competition around him he's got slower.
Antonov wrote: ↑5 years ago
Yet he finished in the points on his debut at Racing Point, while Perez - several years at the team - finished outside the top 10.
Marcus Ericsson completely murdered Charles Leclerc in Bahrain last year, but you're not going to go on record and say that Ericsson is better, are you?
Antonov wrote: ↑5 years ago
Yet he finished in the points on his debut at Racing Point, while Perez - several years at the team - finished outside the top 10.
Marcus Ericsson completely murdered Charles Leclerc in Bahrain last year, but you're not going to go on record and say that Ericsson is better, are you?
Given that only one of them is a future F1 world champion, the answer is obvious.
Oscar Piastri in F1! Catch the fever! Vettel Hate Club. Life membership.
The issue is is that Stroll will be around for many years to come thanks to the consortium that owns Racing Point. He’s done ok and will continue to do ok but that’s it. He isn’t on a level with his junior peers like Verstappen (or Ocon) yet he’s reasonably solid enough and is better than many of the other chequebook racers before him like Chilton or Ericsson or Diniz or Zunino.
It was only a few years ago that Sirotkin and his backers were touted to be taking over Sauber and placing him in a race seat. Back then the relative unknown Sirotkin was in FR3.5 and on the receiving end of a fair amount of hatred for (not even) getting into F1 thanks to money. He certainly proved a lot of people wrong. Funny how perception works.
Stroll have had decent-to-good race craft over the past few years but his qualifying efforts have been.......shit. It's hard to prove your worth when you're constantly getting knocked out in Q1. He seems to have improved his one-lap pace now and subsequently is getting more to show for it. I'm off the Stroll-hating bandwagon for the time being, he's certainly looking like a solid F1 driver this year.
He certainly seems to have moved on from being the bloke who could not get out of Q1 last year.... or it is more an indication of how good a replica the pink car is.
* I started life with nothing, and still have most of it left
“Good drivers have dead flies on the side windows!” (Walter Röhrl)
* I married Miss Right. Just didn't know her first name was Always
