Amongst the crashes and chaos at the Baku Grand Prix one drive shone. His name is Lance Stroll, he was a relative unknown just a year ago and, at 18-years and 239 days of age, he became the youngest driver to stand on a Formula 1 podium.
It’s been an amazing few weeks for the young Canadian who had looked hapless and hopeless in his first six appearances in F1. But there were positive signs in Canada, where he finished ninth, and last Sunday’s appearance on the winner’s podium announced his arrival on the biggest stage of them all.
Stroll was quite faultless throughout the entire Baku race weekend making no mistakes in three practice sessions, qualifying and the race itself. Many have attributed this seemingly improved form to a private testing session the driver had at the Circuit of the America’s in Austin Texas the prior weekend.
This private test was unconventional to say the very least and, due to a ban on testing the current spec cars, he was at the wheel of a 2014 Williams race car. It was accompanied by 20 Williams’ staff and two new Mercedes engines bought specifically for the job. With a car probably flown out from the UK for the test, this was an expensive few days out for the teenager.
We say that on the understanding the team are unlikely to have picked up any part of the bill associated with such a weekend away. And there is no question that the team, which showed an operating profit of £116.7 million in 2016 despite their on-track exploits amounting to a single podium finish and a fifth place overall in the constructor’s championship, financed any of Stroll’s pre-season testing program.
This involved a full crew of Williams’ mechanics and technicians along with five Mercedes engineers and private sessions around Monza, Hungry, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi, Austin and Silverstone. In total this tour is estimated to have cost over £60 million, a bill Stroll’s father, billionaire Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll, will have picked-up.
A well-financed driver at the helm of a Williams is nothing new. Most recently Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado came to the team with enough money to cover the national debt of a smaller South American country. In return he did give them their first race victory for almost eight years, that was in 2012 and the team have been winless ever since.
But should motorsport at the highest echelon be this way? And will we ever see another rages-to-riches story that Lewis Hamilton can lay claim to? It has to be considered doubtful and it’s intriguing as to where ‘cash for drives’ scenario will take us.
No doubt Stroll Snr. would like to see his son go to the very top and in F1 that means a drive in a championship contending car, preferably a Ferrari. So it is interesting to note Lawrence Stroll is one of the foremost private collectors of Ferraris in the world (his assemblage includes a 1962 250 GTO) and, for good measure, owns the Ferrari dealership in Quebec although now residing in Switzerland.
And it’s coincidental that the Ferrari F1 team could, by the end of 2020, lose a $100 million payment the F1’s circus traditionally gives the Italian marque every year simply to take part in the sport – because they have done every year since 1950.
New ringmasters, in the shape of innovative Formula 1 owners Liberty Media, would ideally like to end this special one-off payment to the Italian team and, if they do, it will create a dent in a balance sheet which the team may like to fill.
So could a pay driver in the shape of a 22-year-old Lance Stroll be at the wheel of a Ferrari come 2021?
Anyone else recall Victor Kiam proudly announcing, in a TV commercial in regards to Remington shavers, “I liked the shaver so much, I bought the company!”
