The uncomfortable decision facing Lawrence Stroll

You can build the most impressive factory and fill it with all the latest equipment and computer software. Construct the most sophisticated in-house wind tunnel, boosting the potential of your team’s development rate. You can hire the most successful F1 designer of all time, paying him £30 million a year to design your cars.

But it doesn’t matter one bit if the biggest weakness in the whole of the operation is the person responsible for delivering the results on track.

Lance Stroll’s formation lap blunder at the start of the Brazilian Grand Prix was evidence enough that if Aston Martin is deadly serious – as would seem by Lawrence Stroll’s considerable financial investment in the team’s new Silverstone factory – about becoming world champions, then an urgent rethink about its driver line up is required.

Stroll thudded his AMR24 into the Interlagos on the formation lap. Afterwards, in the media pen, he explained how he “had a huge rear lock” and hinted at a “brake failure problem”. Maybe so, and yes, he could also blame the heavy rain, standing water or even the uneven, bumpy surface, which he didn’t.

What is totally inexplicable is not the fact he hit the barriers (as he also did in qualifying), but his bewildering decision to turn his Aston Martin around and drive straight into the gravel, beaching his car so that he would not be able to start the race.

Such an error could be bestowed upon Oliver Bearman or even Franco Colapinto, who have not even raced in a handful of Grands Prix yet. But Stroll, somewhat incredibly in itself, has knocked up 163 starts across eight seasons.

You could even argue that had he even been driving for Sauber and sat at the very back of the grid, yes, it would have been embarrassing but tolerable. But this is Aston Martin. If you believe the hype, potential world champion in the not-too-distant future.

Stroll sits 13th in the drivers’ championship, having been marooned on 24 points since the Hungarian GP in July when he was 10th. By way of a benchmark, his team-mate Fernando Alonso is on 62 points.

In his inter-team battle with Alonso since the start of 2023, the two-time F1 world champion has outscored the Canadian in 35 races, while Stroll has done the reverse just 10 times.

This is not just a trend with Alonso either. In his first season in F1 with Williams in 2017, Felipe…