Lance Stroll dubbed ‘most stressed driver on the grid’ thanks to Fernando Alonso

Henry Valantine 15 Aug 2023 12:45 PM

Lance Stroll with Fernando Alonso. Montreal, Canada. June 2023.

Lance Stroll “sounds like the most stressed driver on the grid” on team radio, according to Le Mans winner Richard Bradley.

Stroll has struggled to match Fernando Alonso so far this season at Aston Martin, with the two-time World Champion boasting more than treble his team-mate’s points tally at the summer break stage of the season.

Alonso has six podiums to his name this year too, whereas Stroll has yet to make it into the top three, with Aston Martin having had a flying start to the season.

Lance Stroll ‘sounds like the most stressed driver on the grid’

Having soldiered through to start the year less than two weeks after fracturing bones in his hand, Stroll received plaudits from throughout the paddock for the speed of his recovery as he took a P6 finish in Bahrain.

But while he has had better finishes since then, his overall head-to-head record with Alonso has been decidedly one-sided in the Spaniard’s favour.

While discussing mid-season driver ratings on theOn Track GP Podcast, 2015 Le Mans winner Bradley believes that the Canadian has cut a “stressed” figure on team radio this year, but his achievements should not be forgotten either.

“It’s difficult at the beginning [of the season] because remember at the beginning he was injured as well, obviously there was a question mark over whether he’d miss the first couple of races when he fell off his bike,” he said.

“So it’s very hard to look at and rate those because it’s obviously [difficult] when you’re recovering from injury, I was going to say three, maybe a four [out of 10].

PlanetF1.com recommends

F1 2023: Head-to-head qualifying and race stats between team-mates

Revealed: The F1 options available to Alex Palou after McLaren snub

“当你在收音机听他的,他肯定sounds stressed – he sounds like the most stressed driver on the grid, maybe that’s just his personality.

“But yeah, when you look at Stroll everybody always gives the moniker that ‘oh, okay, he’s there because his dad’s there’ and there might be a certain element to that, but again, this guy still won a hell of a lot on his way into Formula 1.

“So again, he is still a good driver, but I just think that the level of Alonso is truly exceptional.”

On Track GP is a YouTube channel launched in collaboration between PlanetF1.com and DR Sports, and you can watch the full episode of the On Track GP Podcast below with the team’s mid-season driver ratings.