Anyone who follows Formula 1 closely knows a few details about this young, promising and lively driver. The Lance Stroll name is controversial as the young driver is on a team owned by his father (Lawrence Stroll) that is also sponsored by an automaker his father also partially owns – Aston Martin. However, most casual fans who have seen a few Formula 1 races know very few details about Stroll Junior. He’s rarely in the spotlight as the main focus is on his father and also on his teammate – Sebastian Vettel – a four-time world champion who draws the most attention.
2021 is only his fifth season in the sport, and only now is Stroll on a team that can bring him podium places. Stroll currently drives car number 18 – a green Aston Martin Cognizant car. Interestingly, he is one of the 8 drivers in the 2021 line-up who have never won a Grand Prix.
Here are 10 quick facts about Lance Stroll to help beginners get to know the Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team driver, and also to help those who already know him learn about his journey.
10
Canadian born into a motorsport-invested family
Via: Formula1.com
Lance Stroll was born in Canada on Thursday October 29th, 1998 and is now 22 years old. Although he was born in Montreal, Stroll has spent most of his life in Europe and now drives in Formula 1, but still under the Canadian flag.
Via: Formula1.com
Most Formula 1 drivers of yesteryear, like the legendary Manuel Fangio, began their careers as car tinkerers who fell in love with racing. Stroll had another way; He was born into a family heavily invested in motorsports and automobiles. His father drove Grand-Am GTs in the mid-2000s and even owns a race track (St. Jovite in Canada).
9
Early kart career
Via: RaceFans.net
Almost all modern F1 drivers start their careers with go-karts. Stroll was involved in various races and championships in parts of Canada and North America from a young age (10 years). His parents brought him to Switzerland so that he could take part in the European kart races. Stroll got off to a frustrating start at this level; he finished his second year in KF3 as 21st overall. That same year, George Russell, another current Williams racing driver of 2021, won the title.
Via: YouTube FIA
He achieved his first go-kart win at the SKUSA Supernational Junior Class Event in America. From 2013 he was promoted to the KF class, where he competed against Max Verstappen, who was 3rd. After this level, Stroll began to drive full-fledged racing cars.
8th
A product of Ferrari’s Formula 1 driver academy
Via: Wikipedia
Unknown to many, Stroll was signed to Ferrari early on when he moved to Geneva in 2011. He was only 11 years old and this was a huge boost to his chances of getting into Formula One.
Via: Formula1.com
Lance Stroll left Ferrari in 2015 and switched to Williams Racing as the pastures on the other side are sometimes greener. He became the first to bear the Canadian flag in Formula 1 since Jacques Villeneuve – the 1997 world champion – left the sport. Coincidentally, Jacques Villeneuve had also started racing with the Williams Formula 1 team.
7th
Several junior racing championship titles
Via: LanceStroll.com
Most of Stroll’s wins came when he was in the junior class. In 2014 he took part in the Ferrari Academy in the Italian Formula 4 championship, in which he won the title. The following year he won the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand.
Via: Lance Stroll
The victories didn’t stop there! After joining the Italian Prema team in 2015 to compete in the FIA European Formula 3 Series, an extremely competitive 33 racing series that was discontinued today, he took the title in 2016 and hit top prospects like George Russell and Maximillian Guenther. With that success and a father willing to invest in his career, he was able to jump two levels straight into Formula 1 when he became aware of him from Williams Racing.
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Son of Canadian billionaire and partial owner of Aston Martin
Via: YouTube
Lance Stroll is the son of billionaire Lawrence Sheldon Strulovitch, popularly known as Lawrence Stroll. Lawrence Stroll is a Ferrari enthusiast who owns a Ferrari dealer in Quebec and a Ferrari fleet that includes an iconic Ferrari 250 GTO. Much of Stroll’s father’s fortune comes from fashion brands like Michael Kors, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger.
Via: Essentiallysports.com
Stroll’s father has invested more and more in motorsport in recent years. In 2019, he led a group of investors to buy the Force India team for $ 125 million plus $ 20 million in debt. His son joined after being renamed Racing Point. Afterward, Lawrence Stroll directed another $ 235.6 million investment in Aston Martin – the auto company. Lawrence’s team changed their name again to Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One in 2021.
5
How he got into Formula 1 and his teams so far
Via: Wikimedia Commons
Nikita Mazepin, Nicholas Latifi and Lance Stroll are current F1 drivers who are the sons of billionaires. Grand Prix races are an expensive sport, even in the junior sector, a driver needs wealthy parents or has to be very skilled and talented with many sponsors and constantly win junior titles just to make it through the ranks. Securing an F1 seat is extremely difficult, but since Stroll’s father paid Williams Racing $ 80 million, he was able to get into the most advanced motorsport.
Via: Formula1.com
After a successful first season, the team flopped massively and had the slowest car on the grid for the next season. At this point, Stroll moved to Racing Point in 2019 (renamed from Force India in 2019). In 2020, Stroll drove the controversial Racing Point F1 car, dubbed “The Pink Mercedes” by many. His team was deducted from points and fined because his car – which was very similar to the 2019 Mercedes F1 Championship winning car – copied it extensively and used some of its parts supplied by Mercedes.
4th
He is also an endurance racing driver
Via: Wikimedia Commons
He first participated in the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2016, now renamed the Rolex 24 At Daytona. And it seems he enjoyed this race which, unlike the F1, doesn’t involve fuel or tire management. Because after his first F1 season (2017) with the Williams team, he returned to the 24-hour sports car endurance race in 2018.
Via: Wikimedia Commons
In 2018 he was with the Jackie Chan Jota DC Racing Team – a team that finished 2nd and 3rd in the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans. In his # 38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca LMP2 car, Stroll finished second, just 0.181 seconds behind Conway, a Toyota LMP1 driver who sat in the # 31 Cadillac DPi VR car.
3
Banned a few times as a junior driver
Via: Wikipedia
After arriving in Formula 3 and sneaking into the top 6 a couple of times, Lance Stroll apparently got too aggressive in his quest to win and lead a few races. In the end, he caused a few falls and was disqualified from a few laps.
Via: Mercedes-Benz.com
The first disqualification came after he was responsible for an accident with his car after getting tangled with Antonio Giovinazzi – now a 2020 Alfa Romeo driver. That same season, Stroll was also involved in an accident at the Spa circuit in Belgium blamed three cars in which Mikkel Jensen and his teammate Rosenqvist were involved. As a result, he was banned from participating in the last race.
2
Best performance at senior level
Via: Wikimedia Commons
Lance Stroll enjoyed the delicious fizz of the F1 podium champagne by finishing third three times (so far). Two of these top performances come from the 2020 races – the Sakhir Grand Prix (Bahrain) and the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. Another record Stroll set in 2020 was his first pole position, which he earned by mastering the wet conditions in qualifying for the Turkish Grand Prix.
Via: Wikimedia Commons
But Lance Stroll’s very first podium at the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a Williams F1 car stands out the most. This year his team finished 4th in the constructors ‘championship, with Stroll Troll just 3 points behind his teammate Felipe Massa – a former Ferrari driver – in the drivers’ championship.
1
Holds several records for the youngest riders
Via: Wikimedia Commons
Third place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2017 gave Lance two records; the youngest rookie and the second youngest driver on an F1 podium. For the latter, Max Verstappen holds the record that has achieved so much that the FIA changed the age rules for entry into Formula 1. Verstappen had won the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix at just 18 years and 228 days, his first race in a RedBull Racing F1 car.
Street: Formula 1
Another highlight for Stroll in his rookie season was his first start from the front row (fourth) in a wet qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix (Monza). It’s fair to say that Stroll excels when it pours. At the Rolex 24 in Daytona 2016, where Stroll finished 5th, he also set a record when he became the youngest highest-placed overall winner in the history of the event.
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About the author
Dennis Kariuki
(24 articles published)
Dennis Kariuki is a tech enthusiast who writes for Hotcars.com. He previously wrote for the.car. He likes to report on the connection between technology and cars. He’s also a big F1 fan. After working tirelessly through the week, you can be sure that on Sundays he is most likely enjoying and following the motorsport events.
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