“The haters will always hate,” says Lance Stroll with a passivity that almost certainly belies the fact he knows there is more weight to the phrase than its throwaway juvenilia suggests.
The 18-year-old Canadian rookie is already under intense pressure and about to face his toughest test on the streets of Monaco. How he comes through it will determine whether he can give his critics reason to reassess.
Stroll has been carrying baggage since he entered the senior levels of racing and it has increased now he is in Formula One. Just as Mrs Merton once asked Debbie McGee what “first attracted her to the millionaire Paul Daniels”, Stroll is almost never mentioned without reference to being “the son of Canadian billionaire, Lawrence” – used as shorthand for explaining the teenager’s place on the grid.
His father has bankrolled him with largesse up to and including ensuring his drive with Williams. Among other things Stroll Sr purchased the Prema F3 team and, for his winning 2016 season in the series, hired the Ferrari engineer Luca Baldisserri. Before entering F1 he paid for his son to go testing at a variety of circuits with a 2014 Williams. For the haters Stroll is on the grid only because of family funding and the scale of it seems to rile them further.
Stroll is used to it now. “I think it is a very normal reaction,” he says. “People think he has money, it is easy for him to be where he is. But in this sport everyone has to have money coming from somewhere to get through the junior ranks. The fact I have won championships and races proves there is more to the story than money.”
Pay drivers are nothing new and being backed by family money is not unusual but Stroll has attracted far more attention and ill-feeling than many others. First there is the speed with which he has made it to the top after only three seasons in single-seaters but more crucially the one answer with which he could have silenced the critics – success on the track in F1 – has been lacking.
Dismissing Stroll so quickly seems a little unfair. In Australia a brake failure caused a DNF, in China he was spun out by Sergio Pérez and in Bahrain Carlos Sainz also ended his race with an ill-timed attack. A spin at Sochi was recovered for his first finish in 11th place and perhaps his worst race was an indifferent performance at the last grand prix in Barcelona. He knows he was not on the same pace as his team-mate, Felipe Massa, who passed him despite having been 50 seconds back.
He is bullish but honest on the season so far. “It’s wrong to say Lance Stroll is the driver who started at the Australian Grand Prix – that’s not how it is,” he says. “I am 18 years old, it’s my first year, the cars are tricky to drive, the tracks are new and these are all challenges I have to work at. I know in time I will be a much better driver and I don’t doubt that.”
The longer he goes without better performances the greater the pressure to prove his point is going to become. Paddy Lowe, the Williams technical director, has acknowledged that fact. “One of the very difficult things for Lance is the enormous pressure placed on him,” he says. “He’s a driver with a lot of expectation around him across the paddock, because there’s a spotlight on how he got here and ‘does he really deserve the drive?’”
The sentiments are echoed by the team’s deputy principal, Claire Williams. “He has a huge amount of pressure on his shoulders,” she says, “but I think he’s doing an impressive job. Our realistic expectations this year are for him to score points.”
Scoring points is crucial and Williams need Stroll to step up. They are sixth in the constructors’ championship, 35 behind the fourth-placed Force India, the position Williams targeted at the start of the year. He seems unlikely to do so in Monte Carlo, with the street track not playing to the strengths of his car, but proving he can master the circuit cleanly would be an achievement.
Monaco is a test like no other, where even the smallest error is punished unforgivingly. “I know it is going to be a big challenge, knowing the type of track it is, and I have never been there before,” Stroll says.
The jury, for the moment at least, ought to be out on Stroll and he remains unconcerned by the verdicts that are already in. “There are people who are hating you more because of where you are coming from,” he says. “People like the ‘he comes from nothing and made it to F1’ story. I know that but I just do my thing, I focus on my job.”
This week is all about focus. He will need to be razor sharp to make it in Monaco because, if he fails, Stroll will be subjected to an even greater and more critical gaze.
