Those that follow Formula One closely, surely know a couple of details about this young, promising, and bubbly driver. The name Lance Stroll is controversial, as the young driver is in a team owned by his father (Lawrence Stroll) that’s also sponsored by an automaker his father also partially owns — Aston Martin. However, most casual fans who have watched Formula 1 races a few times only know very few details about Stroll junior. He is rarely in the spotlight because most focus is on his father and also his teammate — Sebastian Vettel — a 4 time World Champion who takes away most of the attention.
2021 is only his 5th season in the sport, and it's only now that Stroll is in a team that can get him podiums finishes. Currently, Stroll drives Car number 18 — a green Aston Martin Cognizant car. Interestingly, he is among the 8 drivers in the 2021 lineup who have never won a Grand Prix.
Here are 10 fast facts about Lance Stroll to help those new to the sport get acquainted with the Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team driver, and also help those that know him already to learn more about his journey.
10 Canadian Born In A Motorsports Invested Family
Lance Stroll was born on Thursday, October 29, 1998, in Canada, he is now 22-years old. Despite his place of birth being in Montreal, Stroll has spent most of his life in Europe and now competes in Formula One, but still under the Canadian flag.
Most Formula 1 drivers of yesteryear, like the Legendary Manuel Fangio, started their careers as tinkerers of cars who fell in love with racing. Stroll had a different path; he was born in a family that is heavily invested in motorsports and cars. His dad used to race Grand-Am GTs in the mid-2000s and even owns a racing circuit (St. Jovite in Canada).
9 Early Karting Career
Almost all modern F1 cars driver start their careers with go-karts. From a young age (10 years), Stroll had been involved in various races and championships in parts of Canada and North America. His parents took him to Switzerland for him to start getting involved in the European karting races. Stroll had a frustrating start at this level; he ended his second year of KF3 21st in the standings. That same year, another current 2021 Williams racing driver, George Russell won the title.
His earliest go-karting win came in the SKUSA Supernational junior class event in America. From 2013, he got moved up into the KF class where he competed against the likes of Max Verstappen who finished 3rd as Stroll came 6th in the 2013 world championship. After this level is when Stroll started driving full-fledged racing cars.
8 A Product Of Ferrari's Formula 1 Driver’s Academy
Unknown to many, Stroll got signed to Ferrari’s academy early on when he relocated to Geneva in 2011. He was only 11 years old, and this was a huge boost to his chances of getting into Formula 1.
Lance Stroll left Ferrari in 2015 and joined Williams Racing, as sometimes pastures are greener on the other side. He became the first bearer of 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.
7 Multiple Junior Level Racing Championship Titles
Most of Stroll's wins came when he was in junior levels. In 2014, when in Ferrari’s academy, he competed in the Italian Formula 4 domestic championship, in which he clinched the title. The following year, he won the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand.
The wins didn’t stop there! After joining the Italian Prema Team in 2015 to compete in the FIA European Formula 3 Series, an ultra-competitive 33-race series that is now defunct, he collected the title in 2016 beating top prospects like George Russell and Maximillian Guenther. With such success and a father ready to invest in his career, he was able to skip two levels straight into Formula 1 when he got noticed by Williams Racing.
6 Son Of Canadian Billionaire and Partial Aston Martin Owner
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 dealership in Quebec and a fleet of Ferraris, which includes an iconic Ferrari 250 GTO. A large part of Stroll’s dad's fortune is from fashion brands like Michael Kors, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger.
Stroll’s father has been investing more and more in motorsports in recent years. In 2019, he led a group of investors to buy the Force India Team for $125 million-plus assuming $20 million in debt. His son joined after its rebranding to Racing Point. After that, Lawrence Stroll led another investment of $235.6 million in Aston Martin — the car company. Lawrence’s team again changed its name to Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One in 2021.
5 How He Got Into Formula 1 And His Teams So Far
Nikita Mazepin, Nicholas Latifi, and Lance Stroll are current F1 drivers who are sons of billionaires. Grand Prix racing is an expensive sport even at junior levels, a driver needs wealthy parents or to be very skilled and talented with loads of sponsors plus consistently win junior titles to just make it through the ranks. Securing an F1 seat is extremely hard, but with Stroll’s father paying $80 million to Williams racing, he was able to get in the most advanced motorsport.
After a successful first season, the team flopped massively and the next season it had the slowest car on the grid. That’s when Stroll moved to Racing Point in 2019 (rebranded from Force India in 2019). In 2020, Stroll was driving the controversial Racing Point F1 Car, dubbed by many “The Pink Mercedes”. His team got points deductions and a fine as their car — which very much resembled the 2019 Mercedes F1 Championship winning car — .was found to have copied it extensively and used some of its parts provided by Mercedes.
4 He Is Also Endurance Racing Driver
He first took part in the 24 Hours of Daytona now rebranded to Rolex 24 At Daytona in 2016. And it seems that he enjoyed this race, which doesn’t involve any fuel or tire management, unlike F1. This is because, after his first season F1 season (2017) with the Williams team, he returned for the 2018 24-hour sports car endurance race.
In 2018, he was with the Jackie Chan Jota DC Racing team — a team that came 2nd and 3rd in the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours. In his #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca LMP2 car, Stroll came second, only 0.181 seconds behind Conway, a Toyota LMP1 driver who was in the #31 Cadillac DPi-V.R car.
3 Banned A Few Times As Junior Driver
After arriving in Formula 3 and sneaking into the top 6 a couple of times, Lance Stroll apparently became too aggressive in his quest to win and lead some races. He ended up causing a few crashes and getting disqualified from some rounds.
The first disqualification came after he was responsible for crashing his car after tangling with Antonio Giovinazzi — now a 2020 Alfa Romeo driver. The same season, at the Spa racetrack in Belgium, Stroll was also found to be responsible for a three-car crash that involved Mikkel Jensen and his teammate Rosenqvist. As a result, he got banned from taking part in the final race.
2 Best Senior-Level Performances
Lance Stroll has enjoyed the tasty fizz of F1 podium champagne by finishing 3rd three times (so far). Two of these top performances are from 2020 races — the Sakhir Grand Prix (Bahrain) and the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Another 2020 record that Stroll got was his first-career pole, which he earned by mastering the wet conditions in the Turkish Grand Prix qualifying.
But Lance Stroll’s first-ever podium finish in the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a Williams F1 car stands out the most. That year, his team finished 4th in the Constructors Championship, with Stroll troll only trailing his teammate Felipe Massa — a former Ferrari driver — in the drivers’ Championship by only 3 points.
1 Holds Multiple Youngest Driver Records
The 2017 3rd place finish in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix gave Lance records two records; the youngest rookie and the second-youngest driver on an F1 podium. For the latter, the record is held by Max Verstappen who achieved so much, so soon that the FIA changed the age rules for joining Formula 1. Verstappen had won the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix at only 18 years and 228 days, in what was his first race in a RedBull Racing F1 car.
Another highlight for Stroll in his rookie season came when he got his first front-row start (fourth) in a rain-soaked Italian Grand Prix (Monza) qualifying session. It's fair to say Stroll excels a lot when it pours. In the 2016 Rolex 24 at Daytona which Stroll finished 5th, he also set a record of becoming the youngest highest-placed overall finisher in the history of the event.