Lance Stroll has established himself as a regular on the F1 grid and the Canadian driver is now in his seventh season in the elite global competition.
He is yet to win a race in F1, but has been on the podium three times and became only the third Canadian to take a pole position after father and son Gilles and Jacques Villeneuve when he was fastest in qualifying for the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix.
This season he has a strong car at the progressive Aston Martin team and a vastly experienced team-mate in double world champion Fernando Alonso as he bids to enhance his reputation.
| Name | Lance Strulovitch, known as Lance Stroll |
| Born | Montreal, Canada |
| Date of Birth | October 29, 1998 |
| Age | 24 |
| Height | 6ft |
| F1 wins | 0 |
| F1 points | 241 (up to 2023 Italian Grand Prix) |
Lance Stroll was born in Montreal and races under a Canadian license, although he holds joint Canadian and Belgian citizenship. His family is still based in Canada but his main residence is now believed to be in Switzerland.
While Stroll's billionaire father Lawrence Stroll, the Aston Martin team owner, has supported his son's career, Lance had some impressive results in the junior formulas before making his way to F1.
He raced karts from 2008 to 2013, then moved into single-seater racing and won the Italian F4 championship in 2014. The following year, he won the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand, where his opponents included current IndyCar drivers Santino Ferrucci and Calum Ilott.
In 2016, he won the Formula 3 European Championship, with current Mercedes F1 driver George Russell in third place.
Stroll moved into F1 with the Williams team in 2017 and stayed there for two seasons. He then moved to the team where he has raced for the last five years, under the names of Racing Point and currently Aston Martin.
He has yet to finish in the top 10 of the world championship, placing 12th, 18th, 15th, 11th, 13th and 15th so far, although at the time of writing he is ninth in the 2023 driver standings and on course for a career-best finish.
Stroll has stood on an F1 grand prix podium three times to date. In his rookie season, he became the second-youngest points scorer (behind only Max Verstappen) when finishing ninth for Williams in his home race at Montreal, aged 18 years and 255 days.
In the following race, he secured his first podium finish when coming third in Azerbaijan. That also made him the second-youngest driver to finish on the podium, after Verstappen.
It was another three years until Stroll posted his next top-three finish, when he was third in both the Italian Grand Prix and the Sakhir Grand Prix.
His only pole position to date came in the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix. He led until lap 36 but sustained some damage to his car and finished ninth.
Stroll's 2023 season suffered an early setback when he broke his wrists in a pre-season cycling accident, but he battled through the pain to finish sixth in the opening race at Bahrain.
He has been a regular in the points this season but a little way off the pace of his illustrious team-mate Alonso. However, he has shown in the past that when he has a strong car, he can deliver solid results.
More of the same seems likely unless Aston Martin makes a leap forward, which means competing in the lower half of the top ten, with his team still a little off the pace of Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren, although some tracks suit them more than others.
He is +10000 to win any race in the remainder of the 2023 season.
Because his dad owns the team, Stroll's contract situation is not as transparent, or relevant, as it is for most drivers on the grid. While he could improve on the track, his place in the team seems secure as long as ownership stays the same.
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