‘You can’t keep making excuses’ - Stroll’s Aston Martin F1 future questioned

Stroll has struggled to get close to Aston Martin teammate Fernando Alonso so far this season, though a broken wrist injury picked up in a cycling accident over the winter has hindered him. 

While Alonso has racked up 117 points and six podiums across the opening eight races to sit third in the championship, Stroll managed a best result of fourth in Australia and has scored just 37 points. 

Stroll turned in one of his better performances of the campaign at his home race in Canada as he rose from 16th on the grid to finish ninth, though his father and team owner Lawrence had set a pre-weekend target of having both cars on the podium. 

Speaking on their Formula for Success podcast, former grand prix team owner Eddie Jordan and ex-F1 driver David Coulthard discussed a dilemma Stroll Sr may face.

Jordan said: “Here’s a question. You own Aston Martin and have poured fortunes and fortunes of your own money [into it] and there’s a huge amount of sponsorship money, what do you say to the sponsors who have come to you and they ask you the question: ‘Are you sure that Lance can do the job that we need to do to get this team to be a winning constructors team?’

“And I want to know if you’re Lawrence Stroll, what do you answer?”

McLaren and Red Bull driver Coulthard admitted in response that “the stopwatch doesn’t lie”. 

“[That is a] brilliantly simple statement of truth,” he added. "I’m not saying Lance isn’t good enough, he’s won everything all the way through his journey towards Formula 1.

“I think there’s been some elements of misfortune in his run this year but is it any surprise in one of the most difficult transitional qualifying sessions that you’ve seen this year, and in Monaco as well, that one young, brilliant talent [Max Verstappen] and an older brilliant talent [Alonso] find their way onto the front row?

“So there’s a point where you can’t keep making excuses. This is a stopwatch competition, and a certain point that is what will dictate what teams choose to do in the future. 

“I’m sure you had drivers in the car that you didn’t truly believe was a Michael Schumacher or whatever, because they were paying the bills, but you needed to do that [at the time].”

Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack defended the job Stroll is doing after the race in Montreal. 

"[In qualifying] he struggled with grip and if you struggle like that and you don't have the confidence, then it is very difficult," he said.

"And [in the race], I think he drove really well. We took him out of traffic and when he was out of traffic, he managed the lap times of the of the front runners on the hard.

"But if you are in this DRS train, it's really hard to come from 16 to nine, I think it's a great achievement.

"Now on paper it looks only ninth and your team-mate finishes second, and you think it's not a good performance. But when you see where you come from, I think he was very good."