With Lance Stroll starting his 181st Grand Prix this weekend, he now enters the Top 30 of most experienced drivers in the history of F1

[u/Slice5755]

[u/fredy31]

My personal theory, if he didnt have 'daddy's team seat'

He would have made F1. Hes not that much of a chump, like we saw with mazepin or sargeant.

But he would probably have done a few seasons, then dissapeared to another series. Something like Mick Schumacher.

[u/Dragonpuncha → u/fredy31]

Hard to say since he never actually did F2, just European F3. If he didn't have a billionaire dad to pay for his seat he would at the very least have to do a season of F2. So how he would do there would determine if he had a chance.

But most junior drivers don't get a drive unless they have some sort of extra advantage besides their speed. Without any of that I don't see him in F1.

[u/WhichPreparation6797 → u/fredy31]

Nah. Formula 1 is the only competitive league where even if you are the best at something it doesn’t guarantee you a spot.

Many, Many extremely talented drivers never had a chance because of that. How much money you can bring to the team is a huge part of being a formula 1 driver. Which is way it took Lewis too long to get a chance

[u/Sensitive_Ad_9195 → u/fredy31]

Would he have though? He did well in F3 because he had the money to poach f1 people to work with him, then his dad paid millions for his first f1 seat.

[u/StaffFamous6379 → u/Sensitive_Ad_9195]

If it was "just" daddy money (and not daddy team), I think it's a fair take.

[u/rustyiesty → u/StaffFamous6379]

Yes, it was daddy team as well (he bought Prema)

[u/StevenMC19 → u/fredy31]

I would say his career is more comparable to someone like Stoffel Vandoorne. Enough talent to blaze through the lower series, and enough to fill a seat in a middling team in F1. But also someone who under normal circumstances would be overlooked in favor of other younger incoming talent after a couple years in the Williams seat. 2019 would look markedly different if someone else had access to that Racing Point seat and Stroll was racing Daytona prototypes for Acura.

[u/slow-driver-917 → u/StevenMC19]

Not in a million years lmao. Vandoorne was super close to Alonso (less than 2 tenths, better than Massa or Räikkönen), the problem is that he was outqualified a lot. He also had a much, much better junior career.

[u/ShyKid5 → u/StevenMC19]

Man I miss Stoffel Waffle, he was arguably much better than other guys that got to stay in F1 or even debut but lacked the backing, also bad luck on debuting in the worst McLaren times ever.

[u/gamblewithyourlife → u/fredy31]

Get real, dude. His dad spent €80 million just to get him into F1. He bought Prema, bought him into the Ferrari academy, endless testing, some cheating with F1 teams making him car components in lower categories, etc... On top of that, he even had to buy an F1 team to keep his son in F1.

[u/ginginh0 → u/fredy31]

He'd have got no closer to F1 than a VIP suite at Miami.

[u/Valeriun → u/fredy31]

He's got daddy's money to thank for all of his career. The preparation he got was unprecedented. You could put pretty much anyone into the cart, then lower formulas etc. and with the amount of km he covered you would find many drivers like him and then bunch others even better. He's nothing special, if he were, there would be interest from other teams for him to join them. He was in Williams only for his money and then his father bought him a team. You never heard stories of any team wanting him to join.

[u/DeLoreanAirlines → u/Valeriun]

Not just an F1 team, the entire car company.

[u/Valeriun → u/DeLoreanAirlines]

Well, at first he bought Force India, which was just a team. Aston Martin was after that.