Lance Stroll admits he faced major struggles in 2023, although he believes external factors impacted his performance gap to Alonso.
Amidst Fernando Alonso’s sensational Bahrain podium, Lance Stroll was also highly praised for his start to the year. Despite missing out on pre-season testing due to injury, the Canadian showed respectable speed in the AMR23.
In the Saudi Arabia GP, before a reliability failure ended his race, he was also impressive. Compared to his two-time Champion teammate, Stroll was holding his own in qualifying.
However, a sequence of difficult races saw Alonso comprehensively outperform Lance Stroll.
Monaco, Miami and Canada were among the most detrimental Grand Prix for the 25-year-old’s campaign. They weren’t just costly in terms of the points gap to his teammate – but also regarding his perception among the fans.
In the second half of the season, especially as Aston Martin fell behind, pressure continued to rise. This reached its climax in Singapore when he crashed out in qualifying and didn’t race on Sunday.
Thankfully for Stroll, a series of strong races in Brazil and Vegas helped alleviate this scrutiny. Criticisms began to subside as the Canadian showed flashes of improved performance.
When reflecting on his 2023 season, Lance Stroll explained what he saw as most significant:
“It’s been a season with a lot of bad luck, a lot of missed opportunity,” Motorsportweek quotes him as saying.
“I don’t like using the words bad luck, but I think missed opportunities.
“But I guess it’s bad luck when I think about the failures and stuff. We had races like Saudi [when I was] running P4, engine problem.
“Monaco qualifying, hitting debris – damage to the car and starting from the mid-pack in Monaco, you lose your weekend.”
Stroll’s assessment holds some truth, with some extraneous variables impacting his overall points tally.
These results also severely impacted his early-season momentum, which dissipated very quickly. However, it would be inaccurate to overstate the impact of misfortune.
After all, bad luck cannot fully account for a 130-point discrepancy. Alonso was undoubtedly a few steps ahead of Lance Stroll, all whilst adapting to a new team. There is no shame in losing out to Fernando Alonso in the same machinery.
Even World Champions like Kimi Raikkonen have struggled with this challenge.
However, Stroll will not be expected to outperform the 42-year-old next season. Instead, the aim should be to replicate his late-season form and stay within touching distance of the Spaniard.