Personal Information
Full Name | Lance Stroll |
Date of Birth | October 29, 1998 |
Nationality | Canadian |
Current Team(s) | |
Role | F1 Driver |
Lance Stroll: A Brief Biography
About
Lance stroll is a Belgian-Canadian racing driver competing for Aston Martin in Formula One. He was the Italian F4 champion in 2014, Toyota Racing Series champion in 2015, and European F3 champion in 2016. He started his career in F1 with Williams in 2017 and got his first podium at the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix becoming the second-youngest driver to finish on the podium. He got his first pole position at the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix.
Biography
Stroll is the son of the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll and Claire-Anne Callens. He races under the Canadian flag and holds both Canadian and Belgian citizenship. He is of Russian-Jewish descent from his father’s side.
Racing Career
Junior Categories
Stroll took part in the Italian F4 championship in 2014. Despite missing the last race of the season due to an injury he would win the series after dominating it for the most part. He would then proceed to take part in the Toyota Racing Series the following year and win the championship comfortably. Next, he’ll move the Formula 3 European series where he would walk through the championship in his Prema, beating the likes of George Russell, Anthoine Hubert in the process. This would fast track him to the Williams seat at Formula One, partnering alongside Felipe Massa in his debut season.
Formula One Career
Williams(2017-2018)
Stroll would debut with Williams in 2017 alongside Felipe Massa. Throughout the season, Stroll would show glimpses of brilliance and put together some great weekends in between some pretty average ones. In what was a standout race of his season, Stroll would finish third at the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix making him the second youngest podium finisher in the history of Formula One. He would finish the season 12th in the standings, just 3 points behind his teammate.
The 2018 season was much worse as Williams would severely struggle with the pace and drop down the pecking order even more. Stroll would finish the season with just 6 points in the 18th position with not much to speak of throughout the season.
Racing Point/Aston Martin(2019-Present)
For the 2019 season, Stroll moved to the Racing Point, a team owned by a consortium formed by Stroll’s dad, Lawrence Stroll. In a season that would be an eye-opener of sorts, Stroll would get outclassed by his teammate Sergio Perez throughout the season. He would be out-qualified 18-3 and outscored 52-21 in the season. He would finish the season 15th in the standings.
For the 2020 season, Racing point produced a car that was reminiscent of the Mercedes car in the 2019 season. As a result, the car proved to give a huge bump in performance to the team as Racing Point started competing for better positions and podiums throughout the season. Stroll would get the first pole position of his career at the Turkish Grand Prix 2020 and pick up a couple of podiums in the season to finish 11th in the standings. For the 2021 season, Racing Point would be rebranded to Aston Martin and Stroll would drive for Aston Martin in 2021 alongside Sebastian Vettel.
The 2021 F1 season saw Lance Stroll team up with Sebastian Vettel as the team was rebranded as Aston Martin. The car however suffered the most because of the modified floor regulations for the 2021 F1 season. These regulations affected Mercedes and since Aston Martin's previous avatar The Racing Point was inspired by the Mercedes challenger, the team struggled a lot. Unlike the 2020 F1 season where Stroll secured his first-ever pole position, there wasn't much success in 2021. While teammate Sebastian Vettel helped Aston Martin secure its first-ever podium, Stroll could not do much of note. He was however decently competitive against Vettel and did outperform the German in some races.
The 2022 F1 season saw Aston Martin take a step back once again as the team was caught out by the new regulations. Lance Stroll himself struggled quite a bit as the car would be a handful in the first few races of the season. While the team did bring a wholesale new upgrade that improved the car significantly, it was still at best a midfield car, and other than a few points-scoring finishes here and there, there wasn't much of note that Lance Stroll was able to achieve in that car.
The 2023 F1 season has featured a few changes for the team in terms of competitiveness and driver line up. With Sebastian Vettel retiring from the sport at the end of the 2022 F1 season, he was replaced by Fernando Alonso. To add to this, Aston Martin made a massive jump with its new car concept and became a podium contender. In all of this though, Lance Stroll also benefitted from a new teammate and a much better car. The driver has a very strong relationship with Fernando Alonso and the better car has helped Stroll become a regular points scorer now.
Family
Father: Lawrence Stroll
Mother: Claire-Anne Callens