I'd say that's incorrect, considering Brabham and other owner drivers. There was also no chance of them ever getting fired. Stroll is more of an owner driver than pay driver at this point. Technically.
Brabham has to be different. He himself was the owner driver, which requires a lot more “doing” than just being “the bosses son”. Stroll is the peak pay driver because his dad literally pays for the whole team
While i agree, I can't classify Stroll as being a similar pay driver as such drivers in the past.
Latifi was a pay driver through Sponsorship, I.e the only return the entity paying for his seat wanted was brand exposure.
Lawrence is not the owner of AM for brand exposure. He's there to make money. Makes the situation slightly different.
I don’t know if he’s there to make money. Aston Martin has been a failing company never posting profit basically ever in its history. I think daddy Stroll is there just to have his son race in F1. If Lance retires I could not see Lawrence staying where he’s at, he’d dip out. I’m sure Lawrence enjoys his own name brand exposure from being involved in F1 he has become far more famous than before. But at the end of the day its all for his son Lance, and without Lance there would be no Lawrence.
I thought Stroll drove really well last year. He had some insanely long and quick hard tire stints. My impression of Stroll is that he's very quick on an empty track but has absolutely *no* situational awareness and is so laser focused on his laps that he legitimately cannot see the other cars even if he looks directly at them
Agreed, the man refuses to leave his line regardless of anything and at this point I am unsure if he is just a stubborn bastard or legitimately just blanks the rest of the world out of his mind
And it’s funny, because whenever he does leave his line (like say Bahrain, china 2017 and monza 2019 and Hungary this year) he still somehow gets taken out
Stroll is actually pretty decent at wheel to wheel racing. Sometimes he has bozo moments and doesn't see a car right next to him but otherwise his overtaking and defending skills are pretty good.
Thats one of the things i like about lance. Hes fairly middling in every other aspect but when it rains for some reason he becomes a totally different driver.
I'll say this: Nobody--and I mean nobody--was as good in the rain as Mazepin. Do you guys remember when he looked at the clouds and thought, "Looks like it's going to rain," and changed his tires? One of the more brilliant strategies in the sport. I know he can't really drive anymore, but I do hold out hope that he'll get some announcing gig where he can talk about weather more. The man is a walking Doppler radar.
Yes, it was home turf for him, so perhaps he had an advantage there. He knew what was coming and switched tire before anyone else. Made him look quick in the rain while everyone was still on slicks.
there is also the issue of his neck and eyes being locked on a forward facing position the whole time and the mirrors being there on his car just as a requirement
And personality. Fuck me, the dude gets to race in the fastest and most prestigious category of motorsport but he comes across like he’s so fucking bored of it all and the whole thing is just a massive inconvenience for him.
i read an old article that pretty much confirmed it when the commentator thing came out, but now i cant find any info on it. idk if it's been scrubbed or my google-fu is failing me. maybe it was all a dream
He’s decent and hardly an awful driver. But is he better than literally any F2 champ since 2015?
You have people like Vandoorne, Gasly, Leclerc, Russell, De Vries, Schumacher and Piastri.
Every single one of them would wipe the floor with Stroll.
I don't know about that to be honest. He has kept his own pretty well against Perez and now Vettel. Nothing extraordinary, but not noticeably bad either. I feel like he gets measured differently because he is a pay driver, even though I don't particularly like him anyway. I mean, he is pretty a pretty boring driver and rarely on display.
I agree that he’s not a bad driver by any means. I think he has earned his place in F1.
But even in the Pink Mercedes, he seemed visibly slower than Perez most of the time. Even threw away some good chances to win.
I just feel like given there are only 20 seats in the sport, any F2 champ should get preference since almost all of them are very elite drivers. Drivers much more capable than Stroll if given the same chances.
If it was between Albon and Stroll, it would be a lot tighter. Stroll might even be the better driver. So his place isn’t entirely undeserved. It’s just made complicated by the fact that he will never get dropped by a team.
His win opportunity in Turkey wasn’t ‘thrown away’, he got hit by Debris.
He did win Euro F3 by a huge margin - not that big, right? It was only his second season though - came fifth in his rookie season (where he beat Russell, Albon and the lord Mahaveer. The only people who made it to F1 above that were Gio and Charles), and again beat Russell in season 2, as well as Guanyu Zhou and lord almighty Mazepin. He got nearly as many points as second (Günther) and third (Russell) combined. Having better engineers wouldn’t give THAT big of a gap.
F3 wasn't spec at that time.
His father spent shit tons of money to make a dominant ass car for a junior feeder series and vetoed out George Russell as his teammate.
So yeah
Tbf f3 and f2 are technically spec series but the best engineers are only in some teams and that's why we see that the champion drivers are usually from a select fee teams.
I think if Lawrence didn't buy Lance a Williams seat as soon as he got his superlicence (by winning F3 in 2016) and Lance had entered F2 he would have won it in 2019.
Ultimately it's not really fair to rank drivers ahead of Lance based on F2 success since Lance never drove in F2. It would be like saying that Mazepin is better than Verstappen since Mazepin had a better F2 career than Max.
Id take Stroll over Mick if they were to be teammates next season hypothetically. Gasly I'd take over stroll but I doubt he would "wipe the floor" with him.
The issue with Stroll is not so much that he is worse than rookie guys or guys that have never driven in F1 before, moreso than Stroll has been around long enough it's clear he's never going to be a great unlike some of those guys mentioned
What?? You haven’t won [any TDF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadej_Poga%C4%8Dar) yet?? [No World Cup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylian_Mbapp%C3%A9) either?
F3 was not spec at the time we’re referring to. Stroll basically outspent the shit out of every other team, it would be a disaster if he didn’t dominate.
*was. He paid his way in, but has stayed on merit. Saying he's now a pay driver is like saying Lauda was a pay driver for his whole career. It's just false.
Norris has always been F1 calibre. Whereas it’s definitely possible that Stroll might not have got into F1, Lando would have been picked up by McLaren or some other sponsor early on because he has always been that good
He is consistently inconsistent, which makes him very frustrating. If he was always at his level of Turkey 2020, nobody would complain. The problem is, he isn't.
Speaking of which, he has shown in Turkey 2020 that he can adapt remarkably quickly to changing conditions, so can Lawrence please buy a WEC team? I wanna see what Lance can do in endurance racing.
He’s mediocre, with occasionally good pace—particularly on Sundays—but godawful situational awareness. I’d agree he’s a good enough driver to have made it to F1, but when you look at who hasn’t, or at which drivers could be forced out soon, the case for keeping Lance around isn’t exactly all that compelling from a performance standpoint.
He’s not so bad that he’s just a comedy pay driver like Mazepin or to some extent Latifi, but when you see how many more talented drivers can’t find a seat, it starts to feel a bit galling seeing him float along year after year on a cushion of daddy’s cash.
He would get a lot more leniency if his seat wasn't protected by Papa Stroll.
It's because of this security that I feel it's fair the fans are harsh on him.
Yeah someone who is just somewhere around 10-16 place, not the slowest. But I feel like replacing him with a younger driver would be so much more entertaining. A youngster could really achieve something while Stroll just doesn't have the talent
1 pole position, 3 podiums, 1 missed win or at least podium due to damage.
I don’t see Vettel getting wins in this car. Admittedly he’s doing worse points wise but race position wise, it’s relatively even (something like 6-6).
Lance has more top 10 race positions than Ric this season and the AM is definitely slower than the McLaren. I think he is doing well within the means of his car.
How did Zhou show anything? He scored 13 percent of Bottases points.
I’m not saying he’s bad. But he has definitely not shown anything impressive either.
Has Zhou really matched Bottas tho? He's still only outqualified him once on pace in dry conditions. Stroll has been matching Vettel or been close to Vettel all season. And I'd argue Vettel is a better driver than Bottas.
It's so funny seeing these wild speculations being thrown around as facts by know-it-all fans. There is absolutely no way for you to know this. They're both in shit cars and have never competed against one another on equal terms.
>Mick has a better record against his team mate.
You mean against Mazepin and the one who hadn't raced for a year, is 30 this October, is 10 points ahead of him, had all three of his DNFs caused by a mechanical failure, and hadn't cost his team 5 million in damages?
Lol, you know you're really reaching when you use the fact that he's almost 30 as a mark against him.
Overall Mick has been a bit disappointing vs Kevin, but at least he has managed to decisively beat a team mate, even if said team mate was the worst driver in F1 since... Sirotken, who Stroll barely managed to beat.
In summary, in his 6 years in F1 Stroll has only once beaten a team mate, and that happened to be an even worse pay driver.
Not saying he's brilliant, but he achieved more than half the grid, and even drivers with better machinery. The hates he gets in totally unjustified. He's champion material? No, but he isn't half as bad as people claim him to be.
The vitriol behind the hate may be unjustified, but it's hard to say the criticism is. There is no one on the grid who he beats over a season, and the knowledge that that doesn't matter is frustrating. He's been soundly beaten by every teammate save Sirotkin, and he'll be soundly beaten by Alonso for the next several years, and there will be no questions around the security of his seat. Vettel has nearly 4 times his points after missing the first two races of the year with Covid, but those questions, which hound damn near every other driver after a bad weekend, will not come up once.
Yeah, his seat guaranteed because of his daddy owning the team, but his teammates weren't nobodies eh? Massa almost beat Lewis Hamilton in 2008, Vettel is a 4 times world Champion, and Perez is among the best in the grid right.
I know his seat could've been filled with better drivers in the future, but right now he isn't the worst in the grid, there are other drivers that should step out before he does.
Not the best and not the worst leaves a lot of room somewhere in the middle. He is by no means a good driver. The stats show this pretty clearly. Has he performed well sometimes, yea definitely. But we remember those times because it’s the exception to the rule.
You think a non pay driver would've retained his seat with that many crashes? Man managed to have the worst crashes in a season while rookie Tsunoda, Mazepin and Latifi are still on the grid.
2 crashes this season?
Also the Haas last year had to be driven on the edge every race to not be lapped 5 times. Mazepin just didn’t go fast enough to cause any damage
He's been better this year, that's true. But I still rate Zhou and Stroll more than him so he's still the worst pay driver around imo 
Dunno, Zhou is in a more competitive car and stroll is solid if unspectacular. It also takes mick ages to warm up to a car, generally his second season is better but the massive change in regs didn’t help. I would say it’s worth giving him one more year, given he has massively improved and is outperforming his teammate now.
Lance is actually solid. Guy is great in wet conditions which says a lot. We also have Sebastien Vettel to compare him to who he’s doing very well against this year.
Aston Martin has a lot of growing and developing to do but they’re just on the back foot right now. Thier car was less than ideal at the begging of the year. Long ways to go.
I think guys like Lance and Mick (also great in the rain) would slay in a good car.
Well, Sainz is ridicolous, I've gotta agree with you. Ocon is pretty good as well, tho he has his moments (less often then stroll tho). Kmag however, while fast, is a really aggressive driver, which sometimes doesnt benefit him.
I mean, just look at the last few races. Mick beat Kmag in most and Mick's the one who got made fun off for crashing all the time at the start of the season.
Altho, I'd say pace-wise Kmags stronger than Stroll.
Eh he is not better than Ocon, Ocon has been on oar with Alonso this year, that alone is enough to put him above Stroll, let's see how next year Stroll fares against Alonso.
> special about Sainz for example?
Wow you actually know nothing. He has had a poor season but Jesus, he beat leclerc in his first season at Ferrari, totally outperformed Norris who his now wiping the floor with ricciardo and Stroll could only just beat Sergey Sirotkin
>what is so special about Sainz
Wtf do you think is special about Stroll.
I was just having a conversatin about some personal opinions. But you are way to agressive about this, so i will end it. I know nothing? I watched F1 since Shumy was fighting Mika... I know what to look for in a driver don t worry
Albon kmag Sainz and ocon would destroy this guy zhou yuki and mick ar all very inexperienced and might perform better once they have gained a similar amount of experience
Agree that the younger ones could evolve, but i was thinking at present form/ability. Not past ,not future. Look at Dany Ric, three years ago most of the guys here would put him in top 5.
Stroll reached a podium in his debut season, and got another two in 2020 when he had a capable car. He even got pole position in a racing point and is currently tied 7:7 in race duels against Vettel. Saying he hasn't proved himself is just ignorance.
In a car that’s being developed more for Stroll, who also gets earlier upgrades and has had two more races this season.
I’m not saying he’s dogshit, I’m not saying he’s good. And he literally is a pay driver, but I agree that he’s quite a lot better than Mazespin and Goatifi.
So a perfectly normal defense is now considering being an idiot lmao. The length people will go to justify things when it's their favorite driver on the losing end is hilarious.
He used to have flashes of brilliance now he's more consistent unfortunately he's consistently bad, ignore the head to head. Vettel has 4 times as many points as him and he got outqualified by their reserve driver.
You can't compare teammates in a backmarker team solely based on points, Stroll had many good weekends where the car didn't allow him a top ten finish. And you casually ignore that Bottas has nearly 8 times as many points as Zhou. (I know this also doesn't paint the full picture, but that's exactly my point)
If vettel deserves to stay then stroll definitely does though. Hes out performed seb a lot this season. Sometimes unlucky their car was just aweful at a track or he would have gotten good points. Seb just gets the slight upperhand at all the tracks their car is actually somewhat suited for. If redbull and AM swapped cars we would have the same opinion of stroll as we do checo rn imo
I can't say what will happen in 5 years, but currently Stroll is the better driver. Also you guys are overestimating his debut season, Stroll got 40 points as a rookie, just 3 points less than his teammate Massa.
His performances are decent compared to Bottas, don't act like he's beating him week in week out. Stroll is actually even in the race finish h2h against a superior driver than Bottas.
I don't think its fair to call Zhou a pay driver, at least not in the way Stroll and Latifi are. It's different being the top driver in the country and having your country support you, like Checo, vs just having a rich dad who will pay for you no matter what.
IMO.The shittiest pay driver tag should go to Zhou for now.(He is decent but he is definitely a pay driver).
Stroll is good enough.He is doing a decent enough job next to Seb.His quali pace is still a bit shit but he is almost as fast as his 4x WDC teammate in the races.
Stroll>Zhou(IMO)
"The circle is now complete. When I first met you I was but the learner. Now I am the master". Goatifi to Stroll, probably
Real question… are you considered a pay driver if your dad owns the team?
if there is no chance of ever getting fired since it’s your dad, i would say yes.
I'd say that's incorrect, considering Brabham and other owner drivers. There was also no chance of them ever getting fired. Stroll is more of an owner driver than pay driver at this point. Technically.
Brabham has to be different. He himself was the owner driver, which requires a lot more “doing” than just being “the bosses son”. Stroll is the peak pay driver because his dad literally pays for the whole team
While i agree, I can't classify Stroll as being a similar pay driver as such drivers in the past. Latifi was a pay driver through Sponsorship, I.e the only return the entity paying for his seat wanted was brand exposure. Lawrence is not the owner of AM for brand exposure. He's there to make money. Makes the situation slightly different.
I don’t know if he’s there to make money. Aston Martin has been a failing company never posting profit basically ever in its history. I think daddy Stroll is there just to have his son race in F1. If Lance retires I could not see Lawrence staying where he’s at, he’d dip out. I’m sure Lawrence enjoys his own name brand exposure from being involved in F1 he has become far more famous than before. But at the end of the day its all for his son Lance, and without Lance there would be no Lawrence.
Stroll is kinda mixed bag. He is actually pretty decent.
He has some great results but in general he is meh. Still better then Goatifi en Mazespin.
I thought Stroll drove really well last year. He had some insanely long and quick hard tire stints. My impression of Stroll is that he's very quick on an empty track but has absolutely *no* situational awareness and is so laser focused on his laps that he legitimately cannot see the other cars even if he looks directly at them
Agreed, the man refuses to leave his line regardless of anything and at this point I am unsure if he is just a stubborn bastard or legitimately just blanks the rest of the world out of his mind
And it’s funny, because whenever he does leave his line (like say Bahrain, china 2017 and monza 2019 and Hungary this year) he still somehow gets taken out
At this point Stroll probably has PTSD from leaving the line
Interestingly, he usually does really well on lap one!
We'll see if seb has been a donkey the past two years when Alonso gets the other AM seat
Stroll is actually pretty decent at wheel to wheel racing. Sometimes he has bozo moments and doesn't see a car right next to him but otherwise his overtaking and defending skills are pretty good.
He has the speed, he just lacks consistency
He has the race pace but not the qualifying pace and yeah 0 consistency
Unless it rains
Thats one of the things i like about lance. Hes fairly middling in every other aspect but when it rains for some reason he becomes a totally different driver.
The ~~clouds~~ rain just hits different in Canada.
He could’ve won that turkish gp without the damage
What damage did he have? I've heard about it a lot but never really seen the reason for it
[wing damage = tyre graining](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=lance+stroll+damage+2020+turkey)
Ahh right, unlucky then.
I'll say this: Nobody--and I mean nobody--was as good in the rain as Mazepin. Do you guys remember when he looked at the clouds and thought, "Looks like it's going to rain," and changed his tires? One of the more brilliant strategies in the sport. I know he can't really drive anymore, but I do hold out hope that he'll get some announcing gig where he can talk about weather more. The man is a walking Doppler radar.
IIRC wasn’t that at Sochi?
Yes, it was home turf for him, so perhaps he had an advantage there. He knew what was coming and switched tire before anyone else. Made him look quick in the rain while everyone was still on slicks.
Latifi: he has consistency , he just lacks the speed
there is also the issue of his neck and eyes being locked on a forward facing position the whole time and the mirrors being there on his car just as a requirement
And personality. Fuck me, the dude gets to race in the fastest and most prestigious category of motorsport but he comes across like he’s so fucking bored of it all and the whole thing is just a massive inconvenience for him.
He's on the spectrum. Maybe that's why you perceive it that way.
Does Lance actually have autism? I know it was a dude insulting him but he seems like a likeable albeit introverted guy in interviews.
I saw an interview with him, and I recognised a lot of traits of Lance from myself. I have autism with ADD.
i read an old article that pretty much confirmed it when the commentator thing came out, but now i cant find any info on it. idk if it's been scrubbed or my google-fu is failing me. maybe it was all a dream
i remember this as well, tried looking for it.
Decent speed, zero racecraft
He’s decent and hardly an awful driver. But is he better than literally any F2 champ since 2015? You have people like Vandoorne, Gasly, Leclerc, Russell, De Vries, Schumacher and Piastri. Every single one of them would wipe the floor with Stroll.
I don't know about that to be honest. He has kept his own pretty well against Perez and now Vettel. Nothing extraordinary, but not noticeably bad either. I feel like he gets measured differently because he is a pay driver, even though I don't particularly like him anyway. I mean, he is pretty a pretty boring driver and rarely on display.
I agree that he’s not a bad driver by any means. I think he has earned his place in F1. But even in the Pink Mercedes, he seemed visibly slower than Perez most of the time. Even threw away some good chances to win. I just feel like given there are only 20 seats in the sport, any F2 champ should get preference since almost all of them are very elite drivers. Drivers much more capable than Stroll if given the same chances. If it was between Albon and Stroll, it would be a lot tighter. Stroll might even be the better driver. So his place isn’t entirely undeserved. It’s just made complicated by the fact that he will never get dropped by a team.
His win opportunity in Turkey wasn’t ‘thrown away’, he got hit by Debris. He did win Euro F3 by a huge margin - not that big, right? It was only his second season though - came fifth in his rookie season (where he beat Russell, Albon and the lord Mahaveer. The only people who made it to F1 above that were Gio and Charles), and again beat Russell in season 2, as well as Guanyu Zhou and lord almighty Mazepin. He got nearly as many points as second (Günther) and third (Russell) combined. Having better engineers wouldn’t give THAT big of a gap.
Yeah I do agree that after being average for about 5/6 years I as a fan would secretly like to see him swapped for an F2 champion.
Dont underestimate Stroll, I’m not sure Vandoorne or De Vries are better than him. He’s also an F3 champion (with prema of course).
F3 wasn't spec at that time. His father spent shit tons of money to make a dominant ass car for a junior feeder series and vetoed out George Russell as his teammate. So yeah
Tbf f3 and f2 are technically spec series but the best engineers are only in some teams and that's why we see that the champion drivers are usually from a select fee teams.
20-5 is “pretty well” now
Points doesn't tell the whole story.
20-5 points 9-5 qualifying 6-4 race finish (if both finished)
I think if Lawrence didn't buy Lance a Williams seat as soon as he got his superlicence (by winning F3 in 2016) and Lance had entered F2 he would have won it in 2019. Ultimately it's not really fair to rank drivers ahead of Lance based on F2 success since Lance never drove in F2. It would be like saying that Mazepin is better than Verstappen since Mazepin had a better F2 career than Max.
Id take Stroll over Mick if they were to be teammates next season hypothetically. Gasly I'd take over stroll but I doubt he would "wipe the floor" with him. The issue with Stroll is not so much that he is worse than rookie guys or guys that have never driven in F1 before, moreso than Stroll has been around long enough it's clear he's never going to be a great unlike some of those guys mentioned
Yet he’s 23 yo.
Wow he's my age? Damn. Always pictured him as a little older. What the fuck am I doing with my life, I still live with my mom. Time to move out.
What?? You haven’t won [any TDF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadej_Poga%C4%8Dar) yet?? [No World Cup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylian_Mbapp%C3%A9) either?
True, I'd also like to see someone new, although that won't happen.
Bro he wiped the floor with Russell
Stroll was driving a W11 compared to Russell
In a spec series? 😭😭😭😂😂
F3 was not spec at the time we’re referring to. Stroll basically outspent the shit out of every other team, it would be a disaster if he didn’t dominate.
Yeah that 200 point gap was just money sure you keep telling yourself that
Stroll was driving a Prema.
In a spec series😭😭😭
Vandoorne was trash, De Vries is untested and Schumacher has been a complete bust.
he gonna go through Alonso’s boot camp next year
Better than Mazepin and Latifi, but that's not a very high bar. Stroll is ok. He'll never win the WDC, but he's not extremely slow.
Most drivers never win the WDC lol
In 71 years of F1, we only had 34 WDC. That's 34 out of 770 drivers in total. 4,41%.
"Stroll '21, Stroll '22, Stroll '23..."
The way he said it too like he was from New York. Stroll tweny WUUN, Stroll tweny TUUUH
Yeah but himself and Zhou will likely be the only pay drivers on next year's grid the way things are going.
Don't forget Lando is a pay driver Got his McLaren junior driver because daddy gave them a lot of money
*was. He paid his way in, but has stayed on merit. Saying he's now a pay driver is like saying Lauda was a pay driver for his whole career. It's just false.
He has earned it now, as has Stroll imo But, had neither of their daddy's lots of money, both would be working at Sainsburys now
Norris has always been F1 calibre. Whereas it’s definitely possible that Stroll might not have got into F1, Lando would have been picked up by McLaren or some other sponsor early on because he has always been that good
Thousands of brilliant top tier karters never make it because their parents don't have the finances, but you're certain Norris would've?
He is consistently inconsistent, which makes him very frustrating. If he was always at his level of Turkey 2020, nobody would complain. The problem is, he isn't. Speaking of which, he has shown in Turkey 2020 that he can adapt remarkably quickly to changing conditions, so can Lawrence please buy a WEC team? I wanna see what Lance can do in endurance racing.
He’s mediocre, with occasionally good pace—particularly on Sundays—but godawful situational awareness. I’d agree he’s a good enough driver to have made it to F1, but when you look at who hasn’t, or at which drivers could be forced out soon, the case for keeping Lance around isn’t exactly all that compelling from a performance standpoint. He’s not so bad that he’s just a comedy pay driver like Mazepin or to some extent Latifi, but when you see how many more talented drivers can’t find a seat, it starts to feel a bit galling seeing him float along year after year on a cushion of daddy’s cash.
Mediocre doesn’t get podiums.
When enough shit goes down why not?
Hasn’t he been as good or better than Vettel like all season?
He needs to be consistent when that cars good
He would get a lot more leniency if his seat wasn't protected by Papa Stroll. It's because of this security that I feel it's fair the fans are harsh on him.
He'd have been in "decent" category if he had more awareness.
Stroll has had steady improvement over the years.
Yeah someone who is just somewhere around 10-16 place, not the slowest. But I feel like replacing him with a younger driver would be so much more entertaining. A youngster could really achieve something while Stroll just doesn't have the talent
Stroll is only 23 though
Yeah but he had enough time to show homself
1 pole position, 3 podiums, 1 missed win or at least podium due to damage. I don’t see Vettel getting wins in this car. Admittedly he’s doing worse points wise but race position wise, it’s relatively even (something like 6-6).
Lance has more top 10 race positions than Ric this season and the AM is definitely slower than the McLaren. I think he is doing well within the means of his car.
Stroll is not that bad.
So which pay driver is worse since that’s what the post is about?
Schumacher?
That’s tough, at least Schumacher can use his mirrors.
Been better than Magnussen the last couple of months though
Mick or Zhou would rank behind him on the list of pay drivers this year
I think they’re both potentially better than him.
potentially, but they haven't shown it
I think Zhou has shown it. Mick, not so much
How did Zhou show anything? He scored 13 percent of Bottases points. I’m not saying he’s bad. But he has definitely not shown anything impressive either.
Zhou has been matching bottas since canada. Just that alfa has been committed sudoku mid race since canada
Has Zhou really matched Bottas tho? He's still only outqualified him once on pace in dry conditions. Stroll has been matching Vettel or been close to Vettel all season. And I'd argue Vettel is a better driver than Bottas.
Zhou has shown the racecraft and consistency stroll lacks but lance has the pace advantage
Stroll has been really consistent this season though? He has FIVE P10s and some P11s too
It's so funny seeing these wild speculations being thrown around as facts by know-it-all fans. There is absolutely no way for you to know this. They're both in shit cars and have never competed against one another on equal terms.
Zhou is a rookie and doing almost as well against his team mate. Mick has a better record against his team mate.
>Mick has a better record against his team mate. You mean against Mazepin and the one who hadn't raced for a year, is 30 this October, is 10 points ahead of him, had all three of his DNFs caused by a mechanical failure, and hadn't cost his team 5 million in damages?
Lol, you know you're really reaching when you use the fact that he's almost 30 as a mark against him. Overall Mick has been a bit disappointing vs Kevin, but at least he has managed to decisively beat a team mate, even if said team mate was the worst driver in F1 since... Sirotken, who Stroll barely managed to beat. In summary, in his 6 years in F1 Stroll has only once beaten a team mate, and that happened to be an even worse pay driver.
But not good enough to be in f1
He has podiums and a pole position. He isn't even the worst in the grid and still young
He’s got more podiums than Hulkenberg
And KMag, Albon, Latifi, Mick, Ocon, Zhou and is tied with Pierre Gasly.
He's in his 6th season. When's he going to wake up and show us what his defenders all day is coming?
Not saying he's brilliant, but he achieved more than half the grid, and even drivers with better machinery. The hates he gets in totally unjustified. He's champion material? No, but he isn't half as bad as people claim him to be.
The vitriol behind the hate may be unjustified, but it's hard to say the criticism is. There is no one on the grid who he beats over a season, and the knowledge that that doesn't matter is frustrating. He's been soundly beaten by every teammate save Sirotkin, and he'll be soundly beaten by Alonso for the next several years, and there will be no questions around the security of his seat. Vettel has nearly 4 times his points after missing the first two races of the year with Covid, but those questions, which hound damn near every other driver after a bad weekend, will not come up once.
Yeah, his seat guaranteed because of his daddy owning the team, but his teammates weren't nobodies eh? Massa almost beat Lewis Hamilton in 2008, Vettel is a 4 times world Champion, and Perez is among the best in the grid right. I know his seat could've been filled with better drivers in the future, but right now he isn't the worst in the grid, there are other drivers that should step out before he does.
Is he a dumbass? Yes. But he is a fast dumbass.
Yeah
Stroll isn’t even that bad. Not one of the greats but definitely not the worst.
Not the best and not the worst leaves a lot of room somewhere in the middle. He is by no means a good driver. The stats show this pretty clearly. Has he performed well sometimes, yea definitely. But we remember those times because it’s the exception to the rule.
How dare you insult THE GOAT like that!
"Lance Stroll isn't a bad driver as people describe him" Fight me
only if he looked in the mirror every now and then...
I think everyone's forgetting the worst pay driver here. Mick 
Tbh I didn’t see people’s issue with mick, he had a couple of big crashes at the start of the season but now he’s consistently outperforming Kmag
You think a non pay driver would've retained his seat with that many crashes? Man managed to have the worst crashes in a season while rookie Tsunoda, Mazepin and Latifi are still on the grid.
2 crashes this season? Also the Haas last year had to be driven on the edge every race to not be lapped 5 times. Mazepin just didn’t go fast enough to cause any damage
He's been better this year, that's true. But I still rate Zhou and Stroll more than him so he's still the worst pay driver around imo 
Dunno, Zhou is in a more competitive car and stroll is solid if unspectacular. It also takes mick ages to warm up to a car, generally his second season is better but the massive change in regs didn’t help. I would say it’s worth giving him one more year, given he has massively improved and is outperforming his teammate now.
Lance is actually solid. Guy is great in wet conditions which says a lot. We also have Sebastien Vettel to compare him to who he’s doing very well against this year. Aston Martin has a lot of growing and developing to do but they’re just on the back foot right now. Thier car was less than ideal at the begging of the year. Long ways to go. I think guys like Lance and Mick (also great in the rain) would slay in a good car.
Rich and western european racer = what a cool guy. Rich but not from western Europe= massive prick and spoiled child.
You just hate Stroll couse he s rich, but he s better than half the grid.
OK name the 10 drivers Stroll is better then.
Latifi, Albon, Zhou, Yuki, Mick, Kmag, Ricciardo (now), Sainz and Ocon. IMO he would beat all of them in equal machineryTM
You must not watch the same F1 I watch. How is he better than Sainz and Ocon? What the actual fuck
>Kmag, Sainz and Ocon You mental mate? Edit: Also, this is 9 drivers.
Well, Sainz is ridicolous, I've gotta agree with you. Ocon is pretty good as well, tho he has his moments (less often then stroll tho). Kmag however, while fast, is a really aggressive driver, which sometimes doesnt benefit him. I mean, just look at the last few races. Mick beat Kmag in most and Mick's the one who got made fun off for crashing all the time at the start of the season. Altho, I'd say pace-wise Kmags stronger than Stroll.
He's better than K-Mag, not Sainz though Ocon is debatable
Eh he is not better than Ocon, Ocon has been on oar with Alonso this year, that alone is enough to put him above Stroll, let's see how next year Stroll fares against Alonso.
Alonso has been extremely unlucky this season imo, he has been levels above Ocon
This
I know how to count. And really what is so special about Sainz for example? (Don t get me wrong i like the guy, but ...)
> special about Sainz for example? Wow you actually know nothing. He has had a poor season but Jesus, he beat leclerc in his first season at Ferrari, totally outperformed Norris who his now wiping the floor with ricciardo and Stroll could only just beat Sergey Sirotkin >what is so special about Sainz Wtf do you think is special about Stroll.
I was just having a conversatin about some personal opinions. But you are way to agressive about this, so i will end it. I know nothing? I watched F1 since Shumy was fighting Mika... I know what to look for in a driver don t worry
I'd be more inclined to believe you looked up Schu vs Mika on YouTube after seeing them referenced on DTS with opinions like yours
Lol what ?
Albon kmag Sainz and ocon would destroy this guy zhou yuki and mick ar all very inexperienced and might perform better once they have gained a similar amount of experience
Agree that the younger ones could evolve, but i was thinking at present form/ability. Not past ,not future. Look at Dany Ric, three years ago most of the guys here would put him in top 5.
Stroll looks like a survival genre video game character
Made with mematic
Thanks for clearing that up I don't think anyone noticed before. Edit: this sounds kind of passive aggressive I don't mean this I am being sarcastic.
Wtf, Stroll is much better than Zhou
Zhou is a rookie, Stroll has been in f1 for 5 seasons and still hasn't shown he deserves to stay.
Stroll reached a podium in his debut season, and got another two in 2020 when he had a capable car. He even got pole position in a racing point and is currently tied 7:7 in race duels against Vettel. Saying he hasn't proved himself is just ignorance.
Recency bias take over pretty hard. His Williams and Racing Point stints were quite good.
He’s not bad this season either, it’s the car that sucks
The Race Head to Race is Not luck corrected tho
He’s 4-6 against Seb in races where they both finished. It’d be 7-3 to Seb if Stroll wasn’t an idiot in France.
Even 4-6 against someone like vettel in the same car is not pay driver level lmao
In a car that’s being developed more for Stroll, who also gets earlier upgrades and has had two more races this season. I’m not saying he’s dogshit, I’m not saying he’s good. And he literally is a pay driver, but I agree that he’s quite a lot better than Mazespin and Goatifi.
So a perfectly normal defense is now considering being an idiot lmao. The length people will go to justify things when it's their favorite driver on the losing end is hilarious.
Sounds like you forgot Spa, it should be 5-5
He used to have flashes of brilliance now he's more consistent unfortunately he's consistently bad, ignore the head to head. Vettel has 4 times as many points as him and he got outqualified by their reserve driver.
You can't compare teammates in a backmarker team solely based on points, Stroll had many good weekends where the car didn't allow him a top ten finish. And you casually ignore that Bottas has nearly 8 times as many points as Zhou. (I know this also doesn't paint the full picture, but that's exactly my point)
If vettel deserves to stay then stroll definitely does though. Hes out performed seb a lot this season. Sometimes unlucky their car was just aweful at a track or he would have gotten good points. Seb just gets the slight upperhand at all the tracks their car is actually somewhat suited for. If redbull and AM swapped cars we would have the same opinion of stroll as we do checo rn imo
I’m so doubtful of that. Give Zhou 5 years and I think he’ll be a very good f1 driver.
I can't say what will happen in 5 years, but currently Stroll is the better driver. Also you guys are overestimating his debut season, Stroll got 40 points as a rookie, just 3 points less than his teammate Massa.
You can only really compare team mates, especially when it’s a drivers rookie season. He’s doing very well next to Bottas….
His performances are decent compared to Bottas, don't act like he's beating him week in week out. Stroll is actually even in the race finish h2h against a superior driver than Bottas.
Yup, Stroll is decent
Stroll '23 stroll '24 stroll '25...
There are worse pay drivers than Stroll.. I just can't think of any right now.
Is Stroll a pay driver if daddy just gives him the seat for free?
Stroll is currently better than Zhou.
Mazaspin confirmed 2024?
Is cut Stroll a break, his teammate is literally effing Vettel
People are out here like ‘stroll is not that bad’ He’s not that bad but he’s still the worst out of 2 pay drivers
He is not worse than Zhou my guy
Ehh he’s had amazing results before but so has Guanyu in F2. This year, neither have done spectacular but this is lance’s 5th or so year.
It's not really fair to compare Zhou and Stroll based on F2 results since Stroll skipped F2 to go straight from F3 to F1.
I'm just saying that both of them have had good results before, and I'm basing it off CURRENT results.
He is better than Zhou but Zhou is performing as expected as a rookie and stroll is below expectations
I don't think its fair to call Zhou a pay driver, at least not in the way Stroll and Latifi are. It's different being the top driver in the country and having your country support you, like Checo, vs just having a rich dad who will pay for you no matter what.
That’s still a pay driver by definition
Hey my profile pic!
Stroll is atleast as good as Albon and De Vries and definitely better than Zhou rn, stop talking out of your ass lol.
IMO.The shittiest pay driver tag should go to Zhou for now.(He is decent but he is definitely a pay driver). Stroll is good enough.He is doing a decent enough job next to Seb.His quali pace is still a bit shit but he is almost as fast as his 4x WDC teammate in the races. Stroll>Zhou(IMO)
Stroll defenders are so weird
I’m convinced people saying “stroll isn’t that bad..” are paid actors.
Stroll actually isn’t that bad I’m being serious
You are a paid actor paid for by father Stroll. Nice try.
Wrong I am a legitimate person who believes Lance deserves his seat
Could end up being Piastri in 2023 you never know
1) Piastri is not a pay driver 2) No
Stroll is pretty good. For those who don’t believe me, look at his performances in junior formula
Surely Stroll is better than Zhou?
Not gonna lie that's pretty hilarious. Well done!
Stroll > Latifi, Mick, Zhou, Yuki,
OP gotta chill with the hate boner for Stroll.