Why Lance Stroll isn’t about to throw in the towel on F1 now

Stroll has long been a marmite figure in F1, with some of the criticisms directed towards him of his own making and some inherited.

The son of billionaire Lawrence Stroll, who backed him with the best possible equipment to a premature F1 promotion in 2018, Stroll was always going to have public perception going against him.

And with seats in F1 limited to just 20 and many promising drivers missing out, neither Stroll’s hit-and-miss performances to date nor his reluctant dealings with the press have done all that much to change opinion.

Whenever 2025’s lively driver market was discussed in recent weeks and months, there has always been a tacit understanding that the second seat at his dad-owned Aston Martin team was not up for grabs.

With Aston very much a project based around the ambition of the Stroll family, it is a foregone conclusion that the seat will be his as long as he wants it.

So, how long does he actually want it? It’s not unreasonable to assume that spending eight years in F1’s midfield has dampened his motivation, but Stroll dismisses that his interest has cooled in any way.

He insists the superteam that his father is trying to build at its brand-new Silverstone headquarters will be worth the wait, with it being a shame to bail out now before the team has a chance to capitalise on the 2026 rules reset and the Honda works partnership that are fast coming into view.

“It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come as a team the last five years since we were in pink colours,” he said.

“We have an incredible facility that we moved into last year. There are a lot of pieces of this puzzle that have been coming together over the last few years.

“Along with the talented people that have been in Silverstone for many years, a lot of new talented people have joined and are joining, which makes this project very exciting.

“We’ve gone from a team that had 350, 400 people in 2019 and now we’re pushing the number of 1,000 people.

“So, I’m definitely committed and excited to be a part of this project. In my mind I’m definitely here for the future, that’s where my head is at.”

The fact that he doesn’t have to fight for his place the same way other drivers do is, with some justification, used to level criticism at him and so are his performances, which have been trademarked by genuine yet inconsistent flashes of speed, which have often seen him qualify and finish below the Aston’s true potential.

The matrix…