Fernando Alonso’s teammate in 2023 will be Lance Stroll, son of the Aston Martin team owner.
Fernando Alonso will face a new challenge in his racing career in Formula 1 in 2023, when he will join Aston Martin, the sixth team with which he will compete in the premier class. And it’s not just a challenge because this is currently the ninth team in the constructors’ standings, but because his teammate will be the owner’s son.
We are referring to Lance Stroll, an Aston Martin driver since his father, the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, decided to buy one of the teams on the Formula 1 grid to give him a seat.
It was in 2018 when Stroll Sr. took over Force India (since 2019, Racing Point), a team that became Aston Martin in 2021 after the purchase of the majority of shares of the iconic British brand by the businessman.
Lance, who is now 23 years old, came to Formula 1 in 2017, after winning the titles of Italian Formula 4 in 2014 and European Formula 3 in 2016, competing with Prema, the best team of the participants. in the lower single-seater championships.
From the ‘bronze’ category, Stroll made the jump directly to the premier class, joining Williams and after a significant financial outlay from his father. The Canadian undertook an intense testing program with cars from the past, allowing him to gain experience behind the wheel of premier class single-seaters.
Stroll has never shone in Formula 1 and has always been a driver who tends to make mistakes. His most notable results in F1 are three podium finishes, achieved at the 2017 Azerbaijan GP with Williams, and at the 2020 Italian and Bahrain GPs, when his Racing Point was considered the midfield leader.
Alonso, good friend of the Stroll
Fernando Alonso’s relationship with the Stroll family dates back to the time when the Asturian driver raced for Ferrari. Just a few months after Alonso joined the Maranello-based team, the Ferrari Drivers Academy signed up a promising young kart driver named Lance Stroll.
For this reason, Alonso and the Strolls met on many occasions at the circuits and forged a good relationship. In fact, they came to share physical training days and Alonso was invited to the family home during the Canadian Grand Prix.
Although he is not a driver, Lance’s father, Lawrence, is a big fan of the motor world and owns a huge collection of classic and modern cars from the Italian manufacturer in Canada, as well as a race track, Mont-Tremblant.
Following the departure of Sebastian Vettel from Aston Martin, it is clear that the team needed a talented and experienced leader both to fine-tune the car and build a competitive team and to be a great ambassador for the brand around the world. Alonso will perform this task to perfection.
Lawrence knows he needs him, but on the track it is Lance who is at the wheel and, as he has shown with Vettel and other teammates on many occasions, he will not miss an opportunity to try and outdo him on the track.
Alonso also knows what it’s like to share a team with ‘favorite’ drivers within a team, as he did in 2007 with Lewis Hamilton at McLaren or, in a way, he does now at Alpine. However, the Strolls are aware that, without Alonso, it will be much worse for them.
Alonso and Stroll, despite their good friendship, have also had their run-ins on the track. One of them took place at the start of the 2018 United States Grand Prix, where Stroll took Alonso from the start and Alonso even said, very angry: “You can’t race with these drivers. The level (of drivers ) is lower than ever.” In a few months they will be partners.