'Lance Stroll zit op hetzelfde niveau als Esteban Ocon'

De enigszins opmerkelijke uitspraken komen van de man met de minst uitspreekbare naam in de Formule 1, Otmar Szafnauer. De Roemeense teambaas van Racing Point was onder de indruk van hoe de Canadese jongeling omsprong met de VJM11 tijdens de bandentests na de GP van Abu Dhabi. Stroll legde 178 rondjes af, en reed de vierde tijd van alle 19 deelnemers. In de F1-podcast vertelt Szafnauer:

"Lance absolutely loved his time in the car, said the car can do the things he wants a car to do which is good, we were duly impressed with Lance. We were already impressed with him when he ran in the simulator. He was on the pace very quickly, up to Esteban's level in the simulator. We were just hoping the pace that he showed in the simulator would translate onto the race track and it did. He was very quick on track too.

"So we've got some good potential there in Lance, we'll work with him to hopefully teach him some things we know about how to drive the tyre, how to preserve it and how to make it go quick and last over the stints and we'll do that with him, help him qualify better too. But he brings some great skills, he's quick, he usually does a great job at the start and over the first lap, he usually makes up places, so we look forward to working with him."

U hoort het: niets dan lof over de coureur die toevallig ook de zoon van de nieuwe teameigenaar is. Vanaf maart zullen we zien in hoeverre de hooggespannen verwachtingen van het team waargemaakt worden. De eerlijkheid gebiedt wel te zeggen dat Stroll samen met Perez de enige coureur is van de B-garnituur die in de afgelopen twee jaar op het podium stond.