The 2025 season will be Lance Stroll’s ninth in Formula 1, making him one of the most experienced drivers on the grid.
With six drivers on the grid next year who have yet to complete a full season, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso provide Aston Martin with one key advantage over many pairings in the paddock.
Stroll will be closing in on 200 Grand Prix by the end of 2025, with only five drivers currently sitting above him on the list of most F1 races without a victory.
New Sauber driver Nico Hulkenberg tops that list, but the doubts that surround Stroll don’t apply to the experienced German.
Stroll won Italian F4 and Formula 3 before his rapid ascent to F1, but he’s never kicked on since his debut in 2017.
Three podiums and a single pole position in 2020 are the biggest accolades of Stroll’s Formula 1 career, but he’s been outclassed by Alonso during their two seasons together.
Nobody at Aston Martin will tell Lawrence Stroll to drop Lance, but it’s hard to imagine the Canadian ever challenging for championships.
Fans were chanting for Felipe Drugovich in Brazil when Stroll spun out on the formation lap, highlighting the struggles he had at the end of 2024.
The route Stroll took to Formula 1 was unique, with the 26-year-old having more backing than virtually any other driver.
So much so, that he paid an extortionate fee to his first team Williams to get him up to speed for his debut, according to a report in The Objective.
Why Lance Stroll paid £414,000-a-day to prepare for his Formula 1 debut
The cost for young drivers to reach F1 is increasing every year, with campaigns in F3 and F2 costing seven figures.
It’s why families work extremely hard to find sponsors and court the interest of Formula 1 teams who can then help back their academy drivers.
Stroll’s father is a billionaire – as he has demonstrated by buying first the Racing Point team and then helping orchestrate a move for the outfit to become Aston Martin.
In the year leading up to Stroll’s debut, he was already taking part in a ‘personalised’ F1 season behind the scenes while racing in Formula 3.
READ MORE: Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll’s life outside F1 from net worth to girlfriend
This was in partnership with Williams, who signed him as a reserve driver at the end of 2025 after he was released by Ferrari’s driver academy.
Stroll took part in an ‘unprecedented’ number of sessions at six to eight circuits that he closed so that he could run on them uninterrupted.
Williams were on hand to help him with these runs given he was part of the team, but Stroll was very much paying for them.
It’s estimated that they cost between £239,000-£414,000 [$300,000-$500,000] every day to organise these sessions.
Lance Stroll needs to take the next step quickly to justify his position within Formula 1
Stroll’s preparations didn’t help him hit the ground running back in 2017.
The Canadian was on the back row of the grid for his debut in Australia, before retiring from the race, and crashed on his next two outings in China and Bahrain.
Stroll has shown moments of potential throughout his F1 career and developed a reputation for being very strong in rainy conditions.
His only pole position in Turkey in 2020 came in the rain, although he was only able to convert that front-row start into a ninth-place finish.
READ MORE: All to know about Aston Martin F1 Team from team principal to lineage
Stroll’s spin in Brazil has dampened that reputation, and he will start the 2025 season on a run of 11 races without scoring a point.
No driver who is still on the grid is on a worse run, and if Aston Martin want to convert the huge amount of money they’ve spent on facilities and hiring the likes of Adrian Newey, then Stroll needs to do better.
Liam Lawson thinks it’s crazy that Drugovich doesn’t have a race seat, but if Stroll doesn’t improve, his father may have to make an uncomfortable decision to give the Brazilian his chance.
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