103 defeats in qualifications out of 140: the harsh reality of statistics for Lance Stroll
Lance Stroll qualifies in front of his teammate only once every four times on average. This season, the Canadian driver has surpassed 100 defeats in qualifying, starting from the Mexican Grand Prix.
Already seven seasons of Grand Prix in F1 for Lance Stroll. The Canadian started his career in the discipline in 2017 with the Williams team. He then joined Racing Point in 2019 after the acquisition of the former Force India by his father, who is now Aston Martin.
At Williams, Stroll teamed up with the 2008 vice-world champion, Felipe Massa, in 2017, and then with the paying Russian driver, Serguei Sirotkin, in 2018. At Racing Point, the Canadian was Sergio Perez’s teammate from 2019 to 2020, and Nico Hülkenberg in 2020 when Perez contracted Covid-19.
When the team became Aston Martin, Stroll had multiple world champions as teammates with Sebastian Vettel from 2021 to 2022 and Fernando Alonso from this year onwards.
A driver less skilled than his teammate in qualifying
Lance Stroll has competed in 140 Grand Prix races in F1 since the beginning of his career. However, his record in F1 is quite modest with only one pole position and three podium finishes: one with Williams at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2017 where he finished third, and two others with Racing Point in 2020 at Monza and Sakhir, securing two more third-place finishes.
But the Canadian driver is regularly beaten by his teammate in qualifying. During the USA Grand Prix in Austin on October 22nd, Stroll recorded his 100th defeat in qualifying against a teammate. At the end of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2023, the score is 37-103, which means that Stroll has achieved a better time than his teammate in 26.43% of the qualifying sessions.
In the 22 races of this season, Fernando Alonso qualified ahead of the number 18 driver 19 times. The Spanish driver also achieved all eight podium finishes for Aston Martin and scored 206 points out of the 280 for the team.
