Lance Stroll scored two points in front of his home crowd at the Canadian Grand Prix. While some people felt that he could have been a worthy choice for the Driver of the Day, others feel that he still underperformed where the Williams car is capable of finishing. But is the Williams car really a capable P5 or P6 finish every race?
Scoring two points may not seem like a big deal, but when you consider those are his first two points in Formula One, it is a big sign of improvement from the Canadian rookie. It wasn’t until his fourth Formula One race that Stroll was actually able to finish a grand prix.
But the worst thing is that everyone is comparing Stroll to Felipe Massa. If you compare the performance of someone who has been driving an F1 car for less than a year to someone who has been racing in Formula One for almost a decade and a half, of course the driver with more experience is going to be better.
And even worse, people think that the Williams car is a car capable of consistently finishing in the top five, but it just isn’t. The Williams car is, in my opinion, at the bottom of the points scoring positions. I mean we’re looking at P8 at the most really.
And that can be backed up by Massa’s inability to rank higher than P9, other than two races. But you also have to consider that those two races were both races in which a faster Red Bull car retired, leaving one less car ahead and meaning that the Williams car likely would have only finished in P7.
My point is that Stroll is not as bad as people think. He really isn’t underperforming his teammate that much. There are actually occasions were Stroll’s fastest lap during the race has been faster than Massa’s. The crash-filled learning curve is just about over for Stroll and we can start to see the potential that he has.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. Assumptions made in any analysis contained within this article are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the author.
